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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24178102">Late Fees</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale'>Fatale (femme)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Angry Librarians, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:01:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,421</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24178102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well, hello,” Jaskier says with more of a leer than he cares to admit. His new neighbor could be ninety or eighteen for all Jaskier knows. God, he hopes he isn’t eighteen. Jaskier already feels guilty enough for fantasizing about a relative stranger, but that would tip the scales and make him feel like a total pervert. </p><p>A horny, guilty pervert. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>643</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>come find me on twitter - @fatalewrites - i'm lonely in my corner of the witcher fandom :(</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">Jaskier gets up around noon and pours himself a cup of coffee and attempts to check his emails on his phone. It’s leftover coffee from yesterday but if he dilutes it with enough water, it only tastes a little like it’s simultaneously waking him up and destroying the lining of his stomach. His phone is dead and he blearily rifles around in his drawers for a few minutes before finding a charger that’ll work. While he’s waiting for his phone to charge enough to tun on, he sips his coffee slowly, trying desperately not to think. Last night was an unmitigated disaster, a classic case of two parties simply not googling each other well enough.</p><p class="western">Across the counter, sits his scarred wooden guitar that he bought second-hand more than a decade ago along with a vintage celluloid pick long lost in one of his many moves. It had been purchased on a whim; he’d had to pay for it in too many meals of dried ramen. But at the time, he was earning a degree he didn’t want, had friends he didn’t particularly like, and a long dreary future planned out for himself that made him feel small and shriveled inside. There is something about music that beckons to him, and it isn’t the promise of stardom – he doesn’t expect that, even if he wouldn’t say no -- but his music is an extension of himself, like regaining the use of a limb that he'd never known he'd lost. His music is generally a mix of folksy ballads and wistful love songs. The problem is that currently, people hate that kind of music. </p><p class="western">Jaskier sighs and takes another noisy slurp of his coffee, turning his phone on.</p><p class="western">On the screen, there are three missed calls from his mom, a few from friends, one text <em>U up</em>?</p><p class="western">He was up, but not for sex, and definitely not for a half-assed semi-anonymous tumble in the sheets. It’s been a while since he’s been up for anything like that.</p><p class="western">He’s scrolling mindlessly through his junk emails when one catches his eye. It’s from his high school, a place he tries never to think about. It’s his ten-year reunion and he scowls as he deletes, deletes, deletes. He doesn’t need to see the veiled looks of pity from investment banker assholes as Jaskier tries to explain that he’s a musician, and no, he doesn’t have a regular gig or an album. He mostly does Elton John and Rolling Stones covers because that’s what people really like, even when they try to pretend they don’t.</p><p class="western">His mother will be by soon to deliver his mail, which she has been forwarding to his apartment for the past six months because it never seemed worth the effort for an official address change for something <em>temporary</em>. He is not going to stay here, he reminds himself grimly. He's only here until something better comes along.</p><p class="western">Beneath his frighteningly neglected mail, there is a stack of overdue books teetering precariously on the tiny table next to his door where he also avoids opening his steadily mounting unpaid bills. In another life, that tiny table might have been a plant stand, but Jaskier’s philosophy is that whoever rescues furniture from the trash can damn well decide its function. Besides, it may be too tall for a plant stand and too small for a side table, but there’s something about the graceful arc of its legs that appeals to Jaskier. The soul and eye of an artist, his mother used to say about his peculiar tastes, back when it was more amusing than disgraceful. But it was also usually said in slightly dismissive tones as if the soul of an accountant would have been far preferable. He always tried not to hear that part.</p><p class="western">Maybe his mother is right. After all, Jaskier has lived in this shit-hole building for four months, three days, and 14 hours – not that he’s counting. It was meant to be a temporary gig in the same way that the first hit of a drug is always an experiment, and how jerking off that guy in the boy’s bathroom during prom is just bros being bros. Which is to say, possibly not at all. </p><p class="western">He’s interrupted from his morose thoughts by some suspiciously rhythmic bumping against the wall that he shares with the apartment next to him. He spills his coffee as he stares at the wall incredulously. </p><p class="western">Last week, he got a new neighbor, which isn’t noteworthy in and of itself. People are always coming and going on this block. Jaskier was stumbling home at some shameful hour when he heard a scuffle outside in the hall. He curiously poked his head outside to see what the commotion was about, and it was just in time to see a shapely bum topped by wide shoulders and a shock of white-blond hair disappear into the apartment next to him. “Well, <em>hello</em>,” Jaskier said with more of a leer than he cared to admit. </p><p class="western">His new neighbor could be ninety or eighteen for all Jaskier knows. God, he hopes he isn’t eighteen. Jaskier already feels guilty enough for fantasizing about a relative stranger, but that would tip the scales and make him feel like a total pervert. </p><p class="western">A horny, guilty pervert. </p><p class="western">The banging against the wall continues, and Jaskier feels his mouth drop open. Oh god, the hot guy across the hall is having sex. Probably with some other unfairly attractive person. They’re just being hot and sweaty and sensual together, and Jaskier needs to stop this train of thought right the fuck now because he’s expecting his mum at any moment and he doesn't relish the idea of answering the door with an awkward boner.</p><p class="western">Jaskier rests his head against the counter, saying a soft prayer.</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">---</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">After his bi-weekly supremely uncomfortable visit with his mother, Jaskier tosses his stack of mail atop the precariously teetering stack by the door as he waves his mother off. Next to him, the door slams shut and he sees the retreating figure of his neighbor down the hall, heading for the stairwell. Of <em>course,</em> he’s too hot and fit and sexy to take the shambling elevator like a normal person. Jaskier huffs and pulls his tatty bathrobe closer around himself. “Well, hello to you too,” he mumbles before closing his own door. It sticks and he bangs it shut with a little kick.</p><p class="western">So his new neighbor is kind of a douche. That’s fine. Most hot people are. Really, the only thing he hopes is that his neighbor will be quiet between the hours of 4 am and noon, his favorite hours to stumble home from a gig at a questionable bar in a questionable part of town and sleep.</p><p class="western">Speaking of which, he should probably be getting ready for instead of worrying about a neighbor that he will probably never even make eye contact with in however long they both live here. </p><p class="western">A letter from his growing stack of ignored mail flutters to the floor. Expecting a dreaded bill, Jaskier picks it up to toss it back on the pile when the return address catches his eye. The public library? The fuck do they want? Probably their books. Jaskier slips his thumbnail beneath the flap and rips it open. </p><p class="western">Inside, there’s a crisp letter on official library letterhead and Jaskier thinks, <em>Uh oh</em>.</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>Dear Patron,</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Library records show that you have the following item(s) overdue:</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>The DaVinci Code</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Due Date 8/22/2019</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Barcode: 978-3785721520</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Price: $10.99</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Due Date 3/19/2019</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Barcode:978-0385537674</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Price: $26.95</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>Breaking Dawn</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Due Date 6/14/2018</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Barcode:978-3551581990</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Price: $12.75</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>The Eye of Argron</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Due Date 1/07/2019</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Barcode: 978-0809562619 </em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Price:$6.99</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>Left Behind: A Novel of Earth’s Last Days</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Due Date 8/22/2019</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Barcode: 978-1414334905 </em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Price: $11.99</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>List of the Lost</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Due Date 5/14/2019</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Barcode: 978-0141982960 </em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Price: $11.70</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>My Struggle</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Due Date 6/21/2019</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Barcode: 978-0374534141 </em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Price: $12.69</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>The Virginians</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Due Date 5/14/2019</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Barcode: 978-1570984150 </em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>Price: $31.93</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>Current fine: $249.10</em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western"><em>Please pay your fine or however much you can manage at this time. Alternatively, you may choose to purchase the books for the current list price provided. For more details, contact: G.E.Rivia@</em>nypl.org</p><p class="western">tel: 917.ASK.NYPL</p><p class="western">(917.275.6975)</p><p class="western">  </p><p class="western">Beneath the boilerplate letter, there’s a hastily scribbled message: p.s. Please also return the books. Other patrons are waiting on these titles. Stop being selfish.</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">Jaskier squeaks furiously when he gets to the last line. Selfish? <em>Him? </em></p><p class="western">Well, okay, maybe a little. But it’s a lesson he’s learned early in life: You might as well look out for yourself because no one else is going to look out for you. Which, granted, has very little to do with overdue library books, but it’s the principle of the matter – he can control very little in his life right now, but he doesn’t have to cave to this smarmy motherfucker. And Jaskier decides right this second that he’s going to keep his books overdue<em> even harder</em>.</p><p class="western">He drums his fingers against the peeling doorjamb, thinking. Finally, he finishes up his coffee and makes a beeline for his laptop. It takes a few minutes to decide if it wants to come on, huffing and groaning in protest, not unlike Jaskier wheezing as he drags his ass up the stairwell at 3 am. </p><p class="western">Finally, he opens the word document and starts furiously typing as fast as his two pointer fingers will allow.</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">
  <em>Dear overzealous librarian:</em>
</p><p class="western">
  <em>I have been busy working and having fun, and have very little time to write thinly-veiled insulting letters to my patrons. Good luck with ever getting your precious books back, asshat!<br/></em>
</p><p class="western"> </p><p class="western">He grins to himself, hits print, and then slaps the slightly smeared letter on his coffee table, making vague plans to mail it later.</p><p class="western">That done, he scratches is belly idly, looking around his tiny apartment. Without the righteous fury to propel him, he’s at a bit of a loss. He could prepare for tonight's gig, but what's the point? Maybe he’ll watch <em>Next in Fashion</em> until it’s time for his afternoon nap.</p><p class="western"> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jaskier eyes himself critically in the mirror. He has his monthly long-standing engagement at a local retirement community tonight. He always likes to dress with a little pizzaz, but geriatrics are surprisingly unappreciative of his fashion sense. He had many hurtful and untrue things said about his moral character the last time he went; it might have been the sheer peach lace top, though.</p><p>This time, Jaskier is going to find the balance between what he likes to wear and what the over 80 generation likes to see in wholesome entertainment. Namely, he means to put his titties away. Jaskier gives his red silk top a last glance before turning around and packing up his guitar in its worn leather case. There’s always the sad moment when he looks around for his guitar pick and then remembers he hasn’t been able to find it in months, and then wonders, for one crystal clear second, how long he’ll keep reaching for things lost to him. </p><p>Never mind that – he has ¾ of a college degree, a can-do attitude, and a room of geriatrics replacing the batteries in their hearing aids in anticipation of his performance. He gives himself one last grin in the mirror. Fake it until you make it.</p><p>It’s going to be an awesome night.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>It was not an awesome night, Jaskier thinks, slowly climbing the stairs. Working at bars is a step above busking, but only in that the cops are unlikely to chase him away. In most circumstances. </p><p>To add shit-flavored icing on top of his crap sundae, the elevator is broken, forcing Jaskier to hobble his ass up seven flights of poorly-lit stairs. This is how handsome young men always die in horror films. The light above the second landing stutters and goes out.</p><p>He’s snapped out of his loathsome thoughts by a lovely bottom a flight above his. He watches the mesmerizing swing of those firm buttocks, letting it distract him from his miserable night. It’s been a long damn lonely time. As it turns out, it’s hard to convince other people they should sleep with you when you don’t even really want to sleep with yourself.</p><p>It’s 4 am and this is what Jaskier refers to as waitstaff, bar staff, and serial killer hours. There is no good reason to be out at these hours. Never mind the fact that he is also out at these hours. His neighbor pushes the door open, glancing back one last time as he does. It’s the first time Jakier gets a good look at his face, framed as he is by the yellow hall light spilling out int the half-lit staircase. Supervise, surprise, he is unfairly handsome with a square jaw and high cheekbones, curious-colored eyes framed by that eye-catching shock of white hair. He glances back at Jaskkir who quickly averts his eyes. One of the hallmarks of big city living is pretending like you inhabit your small slice of space alone. And for godsakes, never make eye contact.</p><p>As soon as he looks away, Jaskier continues his borderline creepy assessment. </p><p>He’s older than Jaskier originally thought – perhaps mid-thirties. But beautiful is beautiful, no matter what the age. His hair looks unkempt, his clothes rumpled. Probably, he’s on his way back from some wild sexcapades with someone very bendy and also unspeakably gorgeous. His scuffed boots are loud on the concrete stairs.</p><p>Despite what was probably a much better night than Jaskier can boast, there is something about him that looks worn, slump to his wide shoulders. His head hangs forward, exposing the pale strip of skin between the curtains of his hair and the collar of his black shirt. It looks weirdly vulnerable, and Jaskier has a flash of tenderness for this perfect stranger. He looks so tired.</p><p><em> You and me, both, buddy,  </em> Jaskier thinks.  <em> Aren’t we all? </em></p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>He’s forgotten all about his correspondence until a few days later when his mother drops off his mail and a casserole, some monstrosity of chicken and cheese and broccoli that he eats standing up at the counter while flipping through his mail.</p><p>He frowns when he sees a letter postmarked from the library.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Dear ex-patron: </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You are not a current patron because according to my records, you have not paid a late fee since 2014. The only reason, I’m told, that you were still allowed to check out books was because Sophia thought “you were super adorable.” Rest assured, I do not share that issue. I do not find you adorable. Let it now be known: The gravy train is over, sir.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Bring back my books post-haste. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Sincerely,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Disgruntled Librarian, Asshat Extraordinaire  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier actually laughs out loud when he gets to the end. That cranky bastard. He tries to remember the various librarians he’s encountered during his infrequent and apparently felonious visits. The only one that comes to mind is a thin reedy fellow with a sweater-vest, faded brogues, and a faintly disapproving air.</p><p>No doubt that’s who he’s talking to, but he wouldn't have accredited the man with such a wicked sense of humor. As many times in life as he’s been presented with the evidence, he’d always surprised that the mantra happens to be true: appearances can be deceiving. </p><p>At the very bottom of the letter is another scrawled post-script. <em> Why did you check out the worst books in the library and why are you so determined to keep them? </em></p><p>Jaskier sets down his fork, steps away from his feast of slightly congealed cream of chicken soup. That does take a minute to answer. A couple of years ago, he had stumbled across a news article of the worst books, and he’d felt sorry for the authors. That’s the simple answer.</p><p>The more complicated on is that he’d once made a list in a local paper as one of the worst new artists, and he’d remembered the feeling – his entire body had gone hot, and then cold all over. He’d felt both known and unknown, aware that he’d left behind anyone who knew or cared who he was to reinvent himself into something that was apparently, faintly absurd. It was the first time among many that he’d doubted his chosen career path, but it had hurt the worst.</p><p>So when he’d stumbled across the list of worst books, he’d decided then and there that lists wouldn't govern his tastes. He’d read and enjoy whatever he damn well-liked. The problem was, most of the books were pretty terrible. And he’d put off finishing them until – well, now. But that was a lot to explain to a grumpy over-zealous librarian, wasn’t it?</p><p>Jaskier looks around his apartment, the grimy off-white walls and peeling doorframes, runs his hands across the edge of the counter, feeling the chipped laminate beneath his palm. While he doesn’t want to imagine the alternative, this is still not quite the life he’d envisioned for himself when he’d left college, all his friends, and everything he’d known behind.</p><p>Who else did he have to talk to, really? When you cut yourself off from everyone, it can be hard to find your way back. It’s that thought more than anything that decides it for him.</p><p>He sits down at his table and starts writing.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In a move that has nothing to do with his inadvertent pen-pal and subsequent crushing loneliness, Jaskier finally gets around to forwarding his mail to his own apartment. He shudders every time he sees his given name, Julian, but it seems a small price to pay to hear from what he’s beginning to think as<em> his </em>grumpy librarian a day or so earlier. </p><p>He wasn’t nervous when a letter didn’t come in the following few days. But he also wasn’t<em> un-nervous </em>about it.</p><p>He's currently marinating in the ambivalent subspace of fatalistic panic, a place he had spent all of his teens and the vast majority of his twenties. He's been dithering around with a new song for the past couple of days, but getting nowhere fast. It's not his fault he has trouble getting it up for his own music. Mostly, people just want Beatles covers or songs that remind them of other songs they already like. People don't really like to be challenged, a fact that would have served him better to know a decade ago.</p><p>He has to hastily push down the urge to ring up his parents and ask if any mail has accidentally arrived for him. It would do him no good if they thought he was actually happy.</p><p>When he wakes up early Saturday morning, he pulls on the crumpled clothes he left on his floor the night before and heads down to his box. Inside, there's a wad of mail and magazines, forced into the small rectangular space by curiously angry postmen. He sees the library on a return address and clutches his letters to his chest as he takes the stairs two at a time. It isn't until he's back safely in his apartment that he tosses the rest of his mail aside, and his hands shake a little as he opens the letter. Inside, it’s not the usual official letterhead. It’s a piece of lined paper torn from a notebook, filled with the same messy scrawl from the post-scripts before. On the lower right corner, there’s a light brown semi-circle like his mysterious penpal was drinking coffee while writing, a detail that he finds utterly charming because he's <em>ridiculous</em>.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Dear Ex-Patron, </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I apologize for my earlier assumptions. I’m sure your music isn’t as bad as you think – as the fact that all these objectively awful books are, in fact, bestsellers demonstrate that people generally can be counted on to do two things a) be awful to one another and b) have terrible taste.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Chin up, if no one appreciates you while you’re alive, they probably will once you’re dead. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Cheers, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Your friendly neighborhood librarian </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier grins down at his letter. He sets it aside. He’ll answer later, but right now, he feels like writing a song.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>He’s just getting to bed from a long night out when a rhythmic thumping against the wall – Jaskier rolls over, pulling his pillow over his head to no avail. This is intolerable. It’s not bad enough that he has to constantly be reminded of other people’s marvelous sex lives, now he has to be kept awake by them. He pulls his phone out of his pillowcase and squints at the screen, checking the tine. 7:30? <em>Jesus Christ</em>. Jaskier clicks his tongue. Typical. It's a sad fact of life that the most spectacular asses are generally attached to major assholes.</p><p>After another twenty minutes, Jaskier throws back his sheets and rolls out of bed, jamming his feet into his unlaced boots. He absentmindedly runs his fingers through his wild, matted hair and stomps outside into the hall.</p><p>He raps his knuckles against the door and when there’s no answer forthcoming, he puts his back into it, using his whole fist.</p><p>When the door opens, Jaskier blinks. His anger dries up mid-inhale along with all of his saliva. </p><p>This man – his new neighbor – is wearing a pair of black sweatpants low on his hips, the material darkened inky black where it’s soaked through with sweat. He’s shirtless and a bead of sweat drops from his chin and lands on his chest, frighteningly close to his nipple.</p><p>“That’s – I can see where your muscles-- urgh,” Jaskier gurgles.</p><p>One of those lovely eyebrows quirks. “Can I help you?” His voice is low but surprisingly soft. </p><p>“I—you were--”</p><p>“Was I making too much noise?” He lifts an arm and rubs the back of his neck and Jaskier has a flash of memory: watching that pale skin in front of him as they trudged up the stairs, both weary in their own ways.</p><p>“No—well, yes, but your<em> chest</em>,” Jaskier manages nonsensically.</p><p>His mouth twitches. “Would you like to come in?”</p><p>“I suppose I could,” Jaskier says, craning his neck to look around. Inside, there are boxes piled up as tall as him. He is aware that he’s stepping into the apartment of a perfect stranger, but his sense of self-preservation – like his bright, shiny future – is currently nowhere to be found.</p><p>He steps over a pile of boxes that he suspects covers a coffee table and spies a set of free weights in the corner, the one thing unpacked and that looks as if it’s seen regular use.</p><p>Two things become apparent at once: 1) it was not wild and bendy sex he was hearing, but his neighbor’s morning exercise routine and b) this man is single.</p><p>“Jaskier,” he says, looking around wildly. </p><p>He looks confused. “Gesundheit?”</p><p>“No, uh, that’s my name.”</p><p>“Oh,” he says, frowning, “Geralt.”</p><p>“How many people call you Gerald?”</p><p>“Too many,’ Geralt answers. He grabs a cup from the cabinet and fills it from the tap, offers Jaskier a drink. </p><p>Jaskier shakes his head. As hard as it is to turn down tepid water from a chipped mug, as far as he can tell, Geralt only has the one and they don’t know each other like that. He watches silently as Geralt drinks he entire cup, refills it, then finishes that off too.</p><p>“So, what brings you to the neighborhood? New to the area?”</p><p>Geralt presses his lips together. Jaskier couldn’t say what changes about his expression, but he suddenly radiates a desperate unhappiness. “No, I uh, just got divorced. Surprisingly, she didn’t want to keep living together. I left her the house.”</p><p>“Oh,” Jaskier says and it all makes a kind of terrible sense now: this is a classic sad divorced guy apartment, right down to the bare windows and single place setting.</p><p>Whatever their reasons for divorcing, Geralt must have really loved her; only true love leads to prime real estate capitulation n this market.</p><p>He looks around at his tragic surroundings and makes a decision right then and there: Gerlt needs a friend far more than he needs some creep lusting after him. So, like he’s done so many times before, he takes his feelings and locks them away. It’s the only way he knows how to move forward.</p><p>He slaps his palm against what he’s fairly certain is a couch beneath mountains of suspect-smelling black clothes. “Geralt, my new friend, would you like to go out and get a drink?”</p><p>Geralt sets his mug down, looks quietly appalled. “It’s eight in the morning.”</p><p>“Ah,” Jaskier amends, “coffee then.”</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>“$9 for a coffee?” Jaskier complains loudly, taking a noisy sip. </p><p>Geralt’s mouth twitches. “No one made you pick extra whip and three kinds of sprinkles.” He'd showered and changed into clean black clothes that look just like the ones he took off, and his damp hair is pulled back from his face, a few tendrils escaping and catching the light from the large windows facing the street.</p><p>“That’s how they get you, the addons,” Jaskier says, taking a bite of his cookie. “So, are you seeing anyone?” Jaskier asks faux-casually with the delicacy of a sledgehammer. He knows that Geralt's not; no one else would put up with his tragic single-guy lifestyle. </p><p>"Kind of," Geralt says and Jaskier firmly tells himself that he is not disappointed in the least.</p><p>They pass a perfectly lovely hour where Jaskier talks, and Geralt mostly grunts answers, sometimes cracks a half-smile, mostly stares with his weirdly intense gaze. It’s not a cracking good time, but it is pleasant.</p><p>As it turns out, Geralt is really terribly nice to look at, but they have very little in common. It’s the classic setup for a casual fuckbuddy situation, except Jaskier learned the hard way to never be someone’s rebound. It’s all fun and games until someone goes and catches feelings. And that person is always him. But he<em> likes </em> Geralt, likes his big gentle hands and steady eyes, his small sardonic grins, and the way he sits – lazy, knees splayed wide – it’s just so unthinkingly<em> manly</em>. Jaskier tells himself off sternly. On his way upstairs, he stops by his post box. Inside, there's a letter postmarked from the library and Jaskier is privately glad that Geralt isn’t here to see his wide goofy smile. </p><p>He’d written back to his favorite grouchy librarian, asking him all manner of personal and impertinent questions, and he can’t wait to see the no doubt saucy answer.</p><p>As he makes his way up the stairs, he thinks again of Geralt and their awkward goodbye as they went their opposite ways outside the coffeeshop just to remember that they lived next door to each other. Suddenly, Geralt had remembered that he needed to go run some errands, probably buy steroids and protein shakes or something – and Jaskier had headed home alone.</p><p>Despite their mutual disapproval of each others’ lifestyles, Jaskier thinks maybe they could be friends and that seems worth far more than a fleeting good time. But if it really came down to it, though, he would not say no to that good time.</p><p>He waits until he's sitting on the corner of his bed to open the letter.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Dear Ex-Patron, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I feel as if I don’t have to tell you that my number of sex partners both current and past is none of your business. Thank you for your concern for my general well being.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Let me return the favor – I can only assume that your diatribe about male circumcision was heat stroke-induced. Perhaps you might want to go get that checked out by a medical professional, assuming you aren’t one. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> (And may God help us all if you are.) </em>
</p><p>
  <em> P.S. Of course I got your clumsy reference to the Wind in the Willows. Why is that your favorite story? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier laughs and pulls out his favorite notebook and pen, the one filled with half-written songs that seem to go nowhere.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Dear Grumpy Librarian of my Heart, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I am happy to report that I am stroke-free. The world can rejoice – I am not a medical professional, a job which I would undoubtedly be terrible at. Besides, I have a far more artistic soul.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Who said it was my favorite story? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yours, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Printed Work Kleptomaniac  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>He’s not ashamed that he immediately jogs downstairs to drop it in the box for outgoing mail. </p><p>Afterward, he tumbles into bed, pulling his lumpy duvet over his head. It’s time for his early afternoon nap. It’s not like he got a lucrative record deal overnight, but he did make a kind of friend and has a bizarre mail relationship with the world’s grouchiest librarian. Not too shabby, he thinks, drifting off to sleep.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Friday finds him hanging out alone on his couch, laying sprawled out on his stomach and eating pizza from the open box on the floor. It’s not exactly elegant, but it passes the time. An infomercial comes on with a well-muscled man yelling at Jaskier to get off his lard-ass and get fit. Jaskier puts down the pizza, feeling self-conscious. Speaking of well-muscled men that make Jaskier feel confused and vaguely ashamed of himself, he wonders what Geralt is doing.</p><p>He could waddle over next door to check, but it seems like a lot of effort. But then Jaskier thinks of Geralt sitting alone or washing his one mug over and over again and he sighs. The problem with friends is that if you want to make that leap from casual acquaintance to friendship, it requires a nominal amount of effort from both sides. Generally speaking, people seem unwilling to put that effort in for Jaskier. He doesn't know why he seems destined to love people a little more than they love him.</p><p>Jaskier rolls off the couch, narrowly missing face-planting into the pizza. With a grunt, he hauls himself up and heads next door, where he knocks heavily against the door, half hoping that it'll go unanswered.</p><p>No such luck. Within minutes, Geralt answers the door, wearing all black and holding a can with a spoon sitting in it.</p><p>“What the hell is that?” Jaskier demands, momentarily distracted.</p><p>“Beans,” Geralt answers shortly and proceeds to take a bite. He does not look like he’s particularly enjoying himself, but then he never does.</p><p>Jaskier steps around him and into the apartment. Geralt is big enough to kick Jaskier out if he doesn’t want him here, but he just watches Jaskier, dark eyebrows raised expectantly.</p><p>His apartment looks much the same as it did last week, just as Jaskier suspects it will six months from now. He looks around at the bare walls, the plain functionality. No pictures, no knick-knacks, nothing personal other than a frightening amount of workout equipment. This may be a Planet Fitness, but it is not a home. In another life, Jaskier thinks, Geralt might have been a great warrior with his spartan lifestyle, his boring practicality, his damnable honor. His irritatingly chiseled jaw.</p><p>But in this life, he’s just a dipshit eating cold beans out of a can.</p><p>“This is really sad,” Jaskier concludes.</p><p>“It has protein, low in fat –“ Geralt frowns down at the little can in his enormous fist “-- it’s healthy, kind of.”</p><p>“Geralt,” Jaskier says tenderly, feeling a swell of affection in his chest for the clueless man in front of him, “I don’t give a fuck.” This settles it. He<em> needs </em> Jaskier’s help. And Jaskier, though he can't seem to help himself, loves to help other people,</p><p>“Well, what would you suggest?” The corners of his mouth are turned down.</p><p>“I have a pizza at my apartment. I know it’s not--” he eyes Geralt’s can “--up to your exacting standards, but at least it doesn’t have a stable shelf life of over three years.”</p><p>Geralt sighs and tosses the can in the trash, dropping the spoon in the sink along with two other spoons, probably the sad remnants of breakfast and lunch. He allows Jaskier to take his arm and steer him back to his place. “Pick a seat anywhere,” Jaskier says, once they're in his apartment. It’s a joke because unless Geralt wants to perch on the windowsill like an angry, overgrown pigeon, there is only once place to sit that isn’t Jaskier’s bed.</p><p>Jaskier scoops up the box from the floor before Geralt can accidentally crush it with his heavy black boots, and slips a slice onto a glass place he snags from the back of his cabinet. He has to wash the plates first; they're a bit dusty. He generally eats things out of takeout boxes and off of paper towels, which he can’t honestly say is much better than cans. As it turns out, Geralt isn’t the only one living the sad bachelor life.</p><p>It’s almost as if everyone’s life is a bit messy under close scrutiny.</p><p>He grabs a slice and puts it in the tiny microwave. When it’s done, he takes the plate to Geralt, along with a napkin. “There. It’s not exactly fine dining, but it’ll keep you alive.” He sees Geralt eye the orange grease pooling at the top, but he takes the offered plate. “People need a little grease in their lives. Helps keeps the wheels moving.” He goes back to the kitchenette and grabs his own plate, then slips onto the couch next to Geralt, leans down to swipe the fallen remote control off the floor. “What do you feel like watching?” He flips through the channels. “I like to watch people on TV eat fancy food while I’m eating greasy takeout. I feel like it makes my food taste better.”</p><p>The corner of Geralt’s mouth twitches. He tucks into his pizza, eyes falling shut as he chews. Jaskier swallows and has to practically tear his eyes away, forces himself not to focus on the dark smudge of his lashes against his cheeks.</p><p>He settles on a cooking show, a contest of sorts. Watching other people work hard always makes Jaskier ravenous. He finishes off his pizza, grabs another slice for himself and Geralt, even without him asking. The frightening way he inhaled the first slice makes Jaskier think that another slice wouldn’t be unwelcome.</p><p>“These shows are rigged, you know,” Geralt says, staring at the TV, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. The light from the TV in the dark room outlines his face in silver and he looks like nothing so much as a handsome ghost, Jaskier's very own live rendition of A Christmas Carol. Jaskier takes in his angular features: nose a bit too sharp and slightly crooked, lips too thin to be called lush. But beauty is and always has been more than a mathematical constant, and people are far more than the clinical sum of their parts. He makes Jaskier's heart race a little each time he sees him, anyway.</p><p>Perhaps Geralt is the specter of things that will never be.</p><p>“Oh,” Jaskier murmurs, “I take it you’ve seen this show?”</p><p>“No,” Geralt admits.</p><p>“Then shut the hell up and watch it,” Jaskier says mildly, settling back onto the couch with a sigh. It might be terrible and second-hand, but at least it’s comfy. “Besides, we shouldn't judge things based on what other people tell us.”</p><p>He tears his eyes away from the TV when he feels Geralt’s gaze on him, and when he looks over, Geralt’s eyes are thoughtful, careful. “Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot lately.”</p><p>“Then maybe you should listen.”</p><p>“Hm.”</p><p>Well, no one ever said Geralt had a way with words.</p><p>Jaskier grins sunnily at him. “What would you do without me?”</p><p>“I was doing fine before I met you,” Geralt says around a mouthful of pizza.</p><p>“You were crouched on the floor, eating beans from a can,” Jaskier reminds him very kindly.</p><p>“Shut up and watch the show,” Geralt says, tossing his own words back at him. Geralt does, however, Jaskier is smug to note, absolutely demolish his food.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When Geralt leaves a few hours later, Jaskier slowly circles the perimeter of his apartment. It only takes a few strides.</p><p>This isn’t the life he thought he would have, but who does get everything they want? All his life, he’d been prepared to live one way only to realize it didn’t take individuality into consideration. He was spoonfed a dream by his parents, measuring a life by a metric of success that he could have never lived up to. And what’s worse, he knows he isn't the only one-- he belongs to an entire generation of tired, vague disappointment.</p><p>This would probably make a good song that everyone would hate, Jaskier thinks, cleaning his plates and putting them back into the cabinet. These are exactly the kind of sad, pondering thoughts that no one wants to hear about.</p><p>His hip bumps the counter and his last unanswered letter from the librarian flutters to the floor. He's not sure what to say and his usual method of avoiding what bothers him isn't working so well lately. He dries off his hands, picks up the letter, and re-reads the last line for the thousandth time.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You didn't have to say. I can tell -- it's your favorite story. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>He's right, goddamnit. A perfect stranger can see him better than the majority of people in his life do.</p><p>So, Jaskier likes kid's books. And no, it isn’t – as his friends and parents suggest – that he has the mental capacity and maturity of a child. It's just – he can remember reading these books and thinking life can't be all that bad. For 270 pages, he could ignore that he was odd, a little mouthy, a lot flighty, and never particularly fit in with any group. Growing up, he only had himself for company. He’d make up stories and poems and songs, spend the afternoons after school in the backyard, staring at the leaves rustling in the wind, stretched out beneath a bright blue sky. </p><p>It was lonely, he realizes now. Even if he’d never been able to put a name to the hollow aching feeling in his chest, it was and still is loneliness. </p><p>He is lonely and has been all of his life. It hurts a little to admit it.</p><p>He sits down on his couch, clutching the letter to his chest. He could unload this all on a total stranger just trying to recoup some of the egregious bills Jaskier owes the city that he would be happy to pay if he had more than a few dollars to his name. But, somehow, he doesn't think his angry librarian would mind.</p><p>Maybe this surly stranger is, in a weird way, exactly what he needs.</p><p>Jaskier makes a decision for the second time tonight, which might just be a new record for him. He's going to write his letter and then get off his ass and finally<em> finish</em> a new song. When has utter disapproval and the abject fear of failure ever stopped him?</p><p>Okay, many, many times, but it won't right now. Jaskier gets to work.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <br/>
  <em>Are you ever out in public and get a whiff of your feet and wonder if everyone else can smell them too? Not that this has ever happened to me, you see. I am extremely hygienic and handsome and masculine. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Just ask my mom. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sincerely, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The klepto of your heart</em>
</p><p> </p><p><br/>Jaskier sighs and checks the calendar he got for free when he bought his tenth chicken sandwich of the week. Apparently, it came with a coupon for a free eleventh sandwich and Jaskier didn’t like to think about the fact that he eats awful takeout often enough that he qualifies for some kind of membership to the saddest club in existence.</p><p>He marks off a gig that he picked up for the weekend. They’d canceled, but he still got to keep the half-deposit they’d made. Win-win, he supposes. He gets to keep some cash and possibly go out on the weekend, cruise for an easy lay. And if that person were tall and blond and scorchingly judgmental, then who could possibly blame him.</p><p>But tonight, he has his standing gig with an upscale retirement community and a shaky new retinue of sad songs about lost love and getting older.</p><p>It’s bound to be a real knee-slapper.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>The octagenarians are filing out of the room when one lady hovers near the back, hesitating. She’s one of the fancy ones, hair carefully coiffed, pink angora sweater perched over her shoulders. She slowly makes her way up to the front, weaving through the half-semicircle of chairs, polished red fingernails carefully curled around a mother-of-pearl cane, the kind of careless elegance he aspires to once he can convince someone to make him a kept boy.</p><p>“Can I help you?” he asks, looking up.</p><p>“That was different than your normal set," she says, faded blue eyes sharp, curious. </p><p>He winds the speaker cord around his hand, slipping it off to form a figure-eight. “I’m trying something new," he says carefully. "Did you like it?"</p><p>She hesitates, head tilted thoughtfully. “It was lovely, but--it seemed a bit sad."</p><p>"Guess I've been a little down lately," he admits. If realizing that you've wasted the last ten years of your life counts as being a little down, then he supposes that's accurate.</p><p> She makes a soft disbelieving sound. “You’re too young to be so depressed.”</p><p>Jaskier grins ironically, trying to make a joke. It's what he always does when something hurts a little too much. “My knees ache in the winter and I have chronic acid reflux, does that count?”</p><p>“Don’t wish away your youth,” she says. “It’ll be gone before you know it. One day, you'll blink your eyes and decades have passed and you'll wonder where they've all gone.”</p><p>For a moment, he puts himself in her shoes: multiple world wars, a great depression, raising a family, losing them all. And he can imagine her now, looking down the long telescope of years, struggling to hold onto the memories. </p><p>"Yeah," he says softly, giving her hand a little squeeze. "Thanks."</p><p>He's interrupted by a knock on the wall by the doorframe. His favorite nurse, Tess, is leaning against the doorjamb, watching him carefully. </p><p>“Take a fifteen with me?” she asks, hand in her scrubs pocket and jangling her keys.</p><p>He nods and leaves his guitar and speaker setup. He supposes one of the residents could try to steal it, but given how slowly they all move, they wouldn’t get very far. He follows her to the back of the building, out a side door marked Exit in glowing red letters.</p><p>Outside, there’s a long, winding ramp with a metal railing leading to the dumpsters. Tess stops on the first landing, leans over the top rail, foot propped up on the bottom rail that runs parallel. Jaskier mirrors her position.</p><p>The night is black velvet stretched over the sky, He wonders what Geralt is doing right now. Probably being sexy and eating something tragic.</p><p>Tess rifles around in her overloaded scrub pockets and pulls out a soft pack of cigarettes. She unwinds the top of the cellophane, slips a short fingernail beneath the foil, and shakes a cigarette out into her palm.</p><p>“Really?” Jaskier says, “you’re a nurse.”</p><p>“Which is why I need to smoke,” she says, shrugging, “it’s a stressful job.” She tucks the cigarette in between her lips and curls her hand around the end, lighting the tip. “Besides, they’re organic,” she says and Jaskier laughs. She holds the crumpled pack out to Jaskier, who takes one. What the hell. He’s making all kinds of bad decisions lately.</p><p>He leans close to her, holding the cigarette in his fingers as she lights it for him. The end flares bright orange as he inhales. It hits him like a fist to the chest and his eyes start watering.</p><p>“Don’t inhale, you fool,” Tess says, rubbing his back soothingly.</p><p>He coughs twice and then tries again. This time, he holds the smoke in his mouth for a few seconds before exhaling. The smoke tickles the back of his throat and he blows it out, watching the murky gray cloud curl away on invisible air currents, spiraling higher up into the sky until it dissipates.</p><p>Tess bumps her shoulder against his companionably. “What’s going on with you? You seem unhappy lately.”</p><p>“Everyone keeps telling me that recently," Jaskier says. "I'm wearing my shiniest shirt." He's not, but she doesn't need to know that.</p><p>“Well," she says, staring up thoughtfully, "you’ve always been kind of sad, it’s just more obvious now.”</p><p>She's more astute than he's given her credit for. </p><p>He laughs, but it sounds harsh even to his own ears. “I’m just realizing that my life is a fucking disaster. I'm about to turn 30 and I have no clue what I’m doing.”</p><p>“You think any of us do?”</p><p>He looks over at her, startled. It's not like he was expecting a bunch of sympathy but a little might be nice. </p><p>She continues, “I’m not saying that you haven't suffered, but at least put it into perspective – you're still alive. And young. Kind of."</p><p>"Thanks," Jaskier says dryly. </p><p>"I'm just saying -- you have time to turn this shit around. Your story isn’t done unless you want it to be.”</p><p>He turns to face her. "Is this what you really want to be doing? Spending your day wheeling people to bingo. Giving people bed baths?"</p><p>He likes this place, but he doesn't spend forty hours a week here, either. He can't actually imagine spending forty hours a week anywhere, except for bed. He might have commitment issues. </p><p>“I have good days and bad days, and sometimes I need to bitch and get it out of my system, but I love my job. This isn’t a good place unless it’s where you want to be. But Jaskier -- every place is like that. Anywhere is miserable if you're miserable.”</p><p>She's right. He's not found anyone he likes or any place because he's fundamentally unhappy with himself. And he has no backup plan, nothing else to do. He's so fucking lost.</p><p>When you choose to live outside the rules of society, you also leave the safety of it. You become an outlier. At one time, he’d thought that was what he wanted. But no person is an island and it’s too easy to leave who you were so far behind that you can never quite find your way back, even if you want to.</p><p>“I should have become an accountant,” Jaskier says mournfully.</p><p>She pushes off from the railing with her foot and stubs out the cigarette beneath her tennis shoe. She picks it up and tosses it in the trash, and Jaskier follows her lead, feeling like a great big faker. “If it helps, you’d make a terrible accountant.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Jaskier says, “you’re a peach.” </p><p>But as they head inside, she rubs a hand against the back of his neck and he leans into it.</p><p> </p><p><br/>---</p><p> </p><p><br/>Jaskier ends up back home earlier than usual. He stares down the hall at Geralt’s door for a minute, then leaves his guitar and gear in the hall, leaning against the wall. Jaskier knocks on Geralt’s door, waits for Geralt’s annoyed grunt, but nothing comes. Well, of course. Geralt presumably works and has a social life, doesn't he? Just because Jaskier is a great big lonely loser doesn’t mean everyone else is.</p><p>The overhead light flickers because Jaskier isn't allowed to have nice things. He leans his forehead against the cool wood. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to talk to Geralt until he realized it wasn’t an option.</p><p>He goes back to collect his guitar and takes everything back to his apartment, not bothering to turn on a light. On his table, there's one unopened letter that he didn't get a chance to read before leaving. He'd totally forgotten about it and his heartbeat kicks up a notch. How could he have forgotten?</p><p>He draws the anticipation out as long as he can -- washes his face, brushes his teeth, changes into a faded band t-shirt and sweatpants. Has a good long pee.</p><p>He waits until he's in bed, quilt tucked up close to his body to carefully unfold the letter, grinning as he sees the scratchy handwriting. First off: this is definitely a dude's handwriting. Second, the letter is long, and as he skims it, kind of meandering, like it's a stream of consciousness. It's written in slightly different ink, one paragraph written with a fountain pen, the next, a ballpoint. His favorite librarian clearly came back to the letter over and over again, adding more thoughts as they occurred to him. There's a sort of shyness to it like the writer wasn’t used to letting his mind wander onto paper, and Jaskier feels a little flattered that he’d made an exception for him.</p><p>
  <em>Dear disgruntled thief-</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier actually laughs out loud.</p><p><br/><em>– To answer your first question, my favorite books change week to week, depending on what I need. Anton Chekhov’s book of short stories to break my heart; </em>The Handmaid’s Tale<em> by Margaret Atwood because it’s frighteningly apropos during these times; </em>Things Fall Apart <em>when I want to be reminded of what people are capable of; </em>Where the Wild Things Are<em> when I need to remember what it means to be a child.</em></p><p>
  <em>I could go on, but I suppose that’s the reason I work in a library?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>To answer your second question: No, I have not randomly smelled my feet, but I can't say that I've paid much attention to it. I'm sure I won't be able to think of anything else now. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier lies back against his pillow. The lamp on his bedside table cuts sharply across the floor, highlighting how shamefully scarred and dusty it is. It might be lovely beneath the grime and damage, but it's going to take a lot of work to get it back into shape. It’s why he always naps during his free time, he thinks, holding the letter to his chest. Easier to avoid what you don't want to deal with.</p><p>Meanwhile, his angry librarian takes his utter bullshit in stride? Has good taste in literature and a healthy respect for children’s books?</p><p>Though he knows he's totally prone to the dramatic, Jaskier doesn't think it's an overstatement to say that he might just be in love.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’s awakened by a sound out in the hallway. He lies in bed, sheets pulled up to his chin, wondering if he should just mind his own damn business. The internet is full of stories of do-gooders getting stabbed for their efforts. Those stories are mostly fake, but still. He doesn’t much feel like being stabbed today.</p><p>But someone could be in trouble. Ugh, he’s going to have to go help, he decides. He groans and throws his sheets back, rolling out of bed and pulling on his robe like armor. </p><p>He cracks open his door, squinting into the dim light of the hallway. </p><p>They’re no more than shadowy shapes at first, but as soon as his eyes catch up to his brain, he realized that it’s a couple kissing, two shapes so closely entwined they look like one. </p><p>Oh – <em>oh</em>. It’s Geralt. With a woman.</p><p>Jaskier shouldn’t be seeing this. He’s certain that the sudden wave of nausea that overtakes him must be the bad burritos he ate for lunch. He doesn't care what Triss says, burritos do not last ten days even if refrigerated.</p><p>Jaskier tries to silently creep back, but as he does, his sock gets caught on an errant floorboard, and he goes toppling backward, the back of his head kissing the doorframe. “<em> Fuck </em> ,” Jaskier hisses in a furious whisper as he slides down the wall. He probably collects a few ass-splinters on his slow descent into<em> hell</em>, but he can’t worry about that right now since he’s currently seeing stars. He slumps sideways on the floor with a sad little<em> oof</em>.</p><p>When his vision clears, Geralt’s lady paramour has departed and he’s standing over Jaskier, brow knit.</p><p>“Are you an angel?” Jaskier slurs, like a total asshole.</p><p>“Are you drunk?” Geralt asks, looking vaguely concerned and more than a little amused. </p><p>“No, annoyingly sober," Jakier answers, pulling his bathrobe tighter around himself. He is still, he notes bitterly, lying on the filthy floor in the hallway amongst the dust mites and shattered remnants of his pride. </p><p>"Can you walk?"</p><p>"Yes," Jaskier decides. tries to sit up. His vision swims and he drops back to the floor. "On second thought, you know, this floor is super comfortable and only sort of disgusting. Think I'll just stay here."</p><p>"Hm," Geralt hums, and in a hideously unflattering description, Geralt leans down and scoops Jaskier up as if he were no more than a soggy kitten. </p><p>"Eh," Jaskier mewls piteously. His curls an arm around Geralt's neck, letting the silky strands of his hair fall between his fingers. "Your hair is the color of starlight."</p><p>"I think you've got a concussion," Geralt replies, frowning. He kicks the door open and unceremoniously deposits Jaskier onto his own couch. Geralt scrapes a hand through his hair, the bright, silvery strands immediately falling down to frame his face again. Jaskier clamps his lips shut to avoid saying anything else fucking stupid. “Are you going to be okay?”</p><p>“I suppose,” Jaskier says listlessly. </p><p>"You’re not going to choke on your own vomit, are you?”</p><p>Geralt has such a way with words. But he does care. “Darling, you say the sweetest things.”</p><p>Gerlt hesitates. “About what you saw--"</p><p>“You don’t owe me any explanations.” </p><p>And the worst part is, Geralt doesn’t. Just because Jaskier doesn’t see why Geralt is sucking face with some mystery woman while his very own willing face is<em> right the fuck here</em>, they are neighbors and kind of friends and nothing more. Geralt doesn’t owe him<em> shit</em>.</p><p>And if it hurts, then that’s entirely Jaskier’s fault.</p><p>“It’s my ex-wife.”</p><p>“Ah,” Jaskier says, can’t stop himself from opening his big fat mouth to add, “Doesn’t look like much of an ex.”</p><p>“She’s not ready to let go.”</p><p>Jaskier squints up at Geralt dubiously – sometimes he's<em> astounded </em>by Geralt’s powers of self-delusion. “Yeah, I can see how hung up she is on you.”</p><p>“It’s not --” Geralt opens his mouth a few times, then closes it. There is a very fetching flush creeping its way up his neck. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”</p><p>He sounds resigned, and Jaskier feels a flash of pity. Doesn't everybody feel that way sometimes?</p><p>Jaskier sits up, yanks the blanket off the back of the couch and curls his legs up beneath him. He pats the free space next to him, and after eyeing him for a moment, Geralt sits down. “Did it physically hurt you to admit that, big guy?”</p><p>Geralt huffs, leaning back into the threadbare couch, face tipped up towards the ceiling. All the cracks in the plaster kind of look like stars if you squint and don't look too carefully. Of course, it probably helps to be slightly concussed. “Every time I think we’re done with each other, I forget why we broke up and I end up back with her. We just can’t seem to stop hurting each other.”</p><p>Jaskier can’t help the thoughtful sound that escapes. Sometimes relationships are perfect on paper, but they just don’t work in real life. Life is not a book and relationships are infinitely complicated.</p><p>“I think you'll be done when you’re ready to be done,” Jaskier says, thinking about all the ways people lay blame and hurt. People can be so unkind to each other, but never as devastatingly unkind as they can be to themselves.</p><p>“I don’t know if I can let her go," Geralt tells the ceiling.</p><p>Jaskier studies his profile, the sharpness of his features, the surprisingly pretty shape of his mouth, which is currently turned downward, lips pressed together unhappily. Geralt has nothing and no one because he's punishing himself for failing, for letting someone he loves down. Maybe Jaskier's doing the same. “You have to. It’s killing you not to.”</p><p>“I never wanted this – I never wanted to need anyone or for them to need me.” A muscle in his jaw ticks. “It always goes to shit for me.”</p><p>“And yet,” Jaskier says softly, nudging him with his socked foot, “here we are.”</p><p>Geralt finally looks at him, snags his gaze, holds it. “Here we are.”</p><p>It’s so intense, it hurts a little. But so many things do. “Sometimes you have to fail to move forward," Jaskier says. "I think you're doing okay."</p><p>Geralt snorts, says self-deprecatingly, “You found me eating beans out of a can in between sneaking off to sleep with my ex-wife.”</p><p>Jaskier laughs softly. “Yeah, but you’re doing the best you can. That’s all we can do."</p><p>"Hm." Geralt shifts on the couch, hands curled loosely in his lap. </p><p>He's thinking too much. Jaskier nudges him again with his foot. "Hey, hey, my birthday’s next week. My parents want to have dinner with all their friends to celebrate.”</p><p>“Is that so bad?”</p><p>“Let me rephrase – they feel obligated.”</p><p>“Ouch.”</p><p>“I'm turning twenty-nine.” Jaskier says glumly, “The twenties are not at all going as TV has led me to believe.”</p><p>“They’re not, they suck,” Geralt says. “And then welcome to your thirties, where you marvel at what a shitshow the past decade was and are amazed you survived it intact.”</p><p>Jaskier thinks of his aching heart, his frighteningly shattered expectations for what his life would look like at this age. “Mostly.”</p><p>“Mostly intact,” Geralt amends, his eyes filled with a terrible kindness.</p><p>“Are the thirties any better?” Jaskier asks hopefully.</p><p>“Yeah, sure,” Geralt, but he's a really shitty liar. </p><p>"Tell me the truth."</p><p>Geralt sighs, something he tends to do a lot around Jaskier. “The thirties are still a shitshow, but you’re just okay with it, kind of.”</p><p>“You expect your life to be shitty?”</p><p> “Pretty much.”</p><p>“Geralt, life isn’t something to be endured. If we don’t savor it, then what’s the point of anything?" He scoots closer to Geralt, the reluctant warmth of him. "The world is imperfect and so, so beautiful. It's easy to miss when you're unhappy, but then--” He brushes his hand against Geralt's arm "--someone comes along and you realize all along that you were surrounded by beauty the whole time – you just had to open your eyes and look.”</p><p>“Hm,” Geralt says, looking at him. </p><p>"I'm really tired," Jaskier says. His eyelids are growing heavy.</p><p>"I'm not sure you should sleep with a head injury."</p><p>“Luckily I have you to watch over me," Jaskier mutters, but he's already drifting off. "You'll be here when I wake up?"</p><p>“Yeah, I'll stay.” The sun is rising, pink and orange and yellow, a bright wash of colors no less stunning than Geralt’s eyes.</p><p>“I hate waking up alone," Jaskier confesses. His mind is already drifting, shifting, and blessedly quiet for once. "I’ve been alone for a long time.”</p><p>“So have I.”</p><p>“You’ve been married,” Jaskier protests sleepily.</p><p>“I have,” Geralt agrees.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier wakes gradually, nestled comfortably in the warmth of someone’s embrace, his cheeks against the hard edge of a sternum. He blinks his eyes open, feeling a humiliating wetness beneath his mouth. He stares down in horror at the small spot of drool pooling on Geralt’s chest.</p><p>"I’m awake,” Geralt says, making Jaskier jump.</p><p>“I knew that,” Jaskier lies.</p><p>He seems to realize at the same time Geralt does that he is still lying on top of Geralt, hips pressed into hips. This passed embarrassing ten minutes ago, but Jaskier’s brain just takes a while to boot up in the morning. </p><p>As he struggles to get up, he pushes a hand against Geralt’s manly chest, letting a mournful little sigh escape.</p><p>“Jaskier," Geralt says, voice low, husky. His face is so close that Jaskier can feel his breath against his cheek. His hair is tangled, knotted in the back and falling down around his face, a pillow crease across one sharp cheekbone. Jaskier thinks he’s never looked more glorious. </p><p>Whatever changed between them last night, whatever shifted, is still here this morning.</p><p>He watches Geralt close the space between them, lets his eyes flutter closed so he doesn’t have to think about this at all. When he was little, he used to play hide and seek with his older cousin; he was notoriously terrible at it. He always hid behind the curtains, feet poking out beneath the bottom, thinking that if he couldn't see other people, they couldn’t see him.</p><p>It’s good to know he’s still as fucking stupid now, thinking if he closes his eyes, he won’t see all the problems with this scenario. He lets himself get lost in the hot, slick slide of Geralt’s mouth against his. Soft, gentle, full of love, and shocking tenderness.</p><p>It’s all the things Jaskier had thought he wanted with Geralt in exactly the wrong way. This kiss isn’t for him.</p><p>Maybe there will be a time when they will be perfect together, Jaskier thinks, but it's not now. </p><p>Jaskier breaks the kiss, breathing hard, forehead resting against Geralt's jaw. </p><p>"Jas--"</p><p>“Shh,” Jaskier says and flexes his fingers, giving Geralt's arm an apologetic little squeeze before letting go. “This isn't--"</p><p>“Yeah,” Geralt says, swallowing.</p><p>“I can’t be a substitute for someone else," Jaskier says, and he’s surprised to realize he means it. Somewhere along these lines, in between losing himself in the uncertainty of the future and the loneliness of the past, he’s regained some kind of equilibrium. Maybe it was his talk with Triss or his ongoing correspondence with his grouchy librarian, but he finds that he's not quite ready to settle just yet. He deserves better.</p><p>“I should go,” Geralt says and gets up.</p><p>Jaskier wants to call him back, but he’s reached his limit on how much he intends to hurt himself. He lets Geralt leave and waits on the couch until he hears the door close softly behind him.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>At some point, Jaskier must have fallen asleep because it’s early evening when he wakes up again. He groans and rolls off the couch, sitting up on the floor. On the TV, there’s some kind of infomercial disguised to look like a scientific study playing.</p><p>He watches in some kind of fugue state until he’s got his credit card in one hand and his phone in the other. For six easy payments of $29.99, he too can be lean and gorgeous. He’s dialing the 1-800 number before he remembers that Jesus, he doesn’t even<em> like </em>ham, a meat that is always inexplicably salty and unappealingly pink, what does he need with a ham cooker. What a weirdly specific piece of machinery.</p><p>He tosses his phone behind him onto the couch and quickly turns off the tv before he can buy the matching whey powder and rotisserie chicken cooker. He gets up off the floor with a groan. It feels a bit like scraping a burnt egg off the bottom of a frying pan -- him being the egg and the frying pan his shitty life.</p><p>Jaskier throws open the curtains, trying not to groan and melt like the Wicked Witch of the West in a bubble bath. He hates the sunlight; it forces him to acknowledge the shameful mess around his apartment and all the other things that trouble him that he'd much rather ignore. He could, at this moment, go out and get blitzed or crawl into bed and sleep the rest of the day away and continue his endless cycle of pity and self-destruction or he could do something about it. </p><p>Jaskier gathers up all the scattered papers and bins them, breaks out a broom and dustpan after guilty swiping the cobwebs off of them with his hand. He goes through and organizes his songs by stage of completion. It’s more than he thought – he’s been steadily working without realizing it. </p><p>Dirty laundry goes in the hamper, old food gets bagged to go to the dumpster immediately. The less clutter he has in his apartment, the more clear-headed he becomes. With the added free space, he finally feels like he can begin untangling the angry snarls of his thoughts, the tangle of small hurts he's been collecting like a dwarf hoarding fool's gold. </p><p>Pain only means what he lets it mean. </p><p>He had, all this time, assumed he was angry with his parents for making him feel like a failure.</p><p>But he's never been half as angry with anyone else as he is with himself for feeling like a failure in the first place. It’s hard to forgive other people for not living up to your expectations, but it’s so much harder to forgive yourself. And it's with a dizzying sense of vertigo that he realizes -- he can just let it go. He can sweep his feelings of unworthiness away like the cobwebs in the corners of his woodwork. Oh, so it may not be that easy but making the decision is the first step.</p><p>Jaskier continues sweeping under his bed, pulling socks out of the mess and tossing them to the side for washing when something shiny catches his eye. He bends down and picks it up. It’s his guitar pick that had been missing for months now, an old favorite. He wouldn’t say the guitar pick is his mojo, such a thing would be absurd, but it's not <em> not </em> his mojo, and he’s admittedly felt a little lost without it.</p><p>He kisses it. Then immediately spits. Christ, dust bunnies. He's a goddamn mess.</p><p>He runs his finger over the edge of the familiar shape. He still knows every scratch and chip as well as he knows the dangerous curves of his guitar, the sound of his mom’s laugh when he says something funny, the color of Geralt's miraculous eyes during a sunrise.</p><p>It’s stilly to be so happy about a small piece of celluloid but it feels like the universe is finally having some mercy on him.</p><p>It feels maybe like forgiveness, Jaskier thinks.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Oi!” Jaskier calls out, just barely managing to catch the elevator, which is actually working for once in its long history of making Jaskier’s life difficult. He's returning from a gig and just manages to wedge his guitar case between the doors before they close. </p><p>He doesn’t notice who else is in the elevator until he’s panting and leaning against the back wall, and his gaze wanders over – “Ah!” he yells.</p><p>Geralt looks at him, the corners of his mouth turned down. He looks a little put-out, slightly displeased, but then he always looks a little like he just smelled a fart so Jaskier isn't inclined to take it personally. He spies a small bag slung over one of Geralt's intimidatingly large shoulders; leather, comfortably worn around the edges, clearly stuffed full of random shit.</p><p>“What’s in there?” he asks, nodding towards the bag. It's none of his business but he's never let that stop him before.</p><p>Geralt’s fingers tighten where they’re wrapped around the bag strap. It occurs to Jaskier that Geralt is nervous, too. He’s just better at hiding it. </p><p>“Books,” Geralt grunts.</p><p>Jaskier laughs. “What, did you just come from the library?”</p><p>Geralt looks at him strangely. “Of course I did.”</p><p>“Oh.” Now he just feels like an asshole.</p><p>They spend about half a second in awkward silence before Geralt sighs. “Do we have to talk about this?”</p><p>Jaskier huffs a laugh, scratches the back of his neck. “I think we’re going to have to timeshare the elevator so we don’t have any more unbearably unpleasant rides if we don't."</p><p>“I don’t know why I kissed you,” Geralt says, staring down at the ugly carpet. He’s wearing all black, of course, but his shirtsleeves are unbuttoned and rolled halfway up his forearms. It’s an indecently good look.</p><p>“It wasn’t because you were overwhelmed by my manly attractiveness?”</p><p>“Ah,” Geralt says, licking his lips, “probably not that.”</p><p>“Oh,” Jaskier says, vaguely disappointed. “Are we still friends?”</p><p>Geralt looks insultingly baffled. “Were we ever friends?”</p><p>“Yes, until you got caught up by my extreme attractiveness.”</p><p>Geralt’s lips press together, but it looks like he’s trying to hold back a smile. “Jesus, I don’t remember it happening that that. Was it manly or extreme attractiveness? You said both.”</p><p>“Both,” Jaskier says just as the elevator dings, and they arrive at their floor. “Let me have this, Geralt. It’s been a dreadful year.”</p><p>"All right, all right. I couldn't control myself."</p><p>"There you go."</p><p>The doors swish open and Geralt motions for Jaskier to exit the elevator before him, always the gentleman. Geralt is kind of an old-fashioned guy, Jaskier surmises, if the Lord of the Rings hair hadn’t been enough to tip him off before now.</p><p>“Hey,” Jaskier says suddenly. “Come over for dinner. I’ll cook.”</p><p>Geralt shifts the bag on his shoulder. “You cook?”</p><p>“I can microwave things,” Jaskier says defensively.</p><p>“How about I cook?” Geralt offers. “I’ll make a list, you can pick up the ingredients, and I’ll prepare it.”</p><p>Jaskier squints suspiciously up at Geralt. “If you can cook, why were you spending your days eating dubious quality canned goods?”</p><p>Geralt shrugs. “It doesn't ever seem worth it to cook for one person.”</p><p>Yeah, he gets that. A lot of things don’t seem worth it for one person, but if Jaskier doesn’t do things for himself, then who will?</p><p>“Bring me that list,” Jaskier says. “I’ll call you when I’m back with the ingredients.”</p><p>Geralt nods and Jaskier watches him unlock his apartment door and disappear inside.</p><p>They’re friends. Good friends having a romantic dinner where nothing at all can happen. “What are you doing?” Jaskier mutters to himself as he lets himself into his own place.</p><p>Still, the idea of not spending the evening alone is pleasant. And Geralt is good company; despite his surly demeanor, he’s a good listener. They can do this – they can just be friends.</p><p>And if it’s not perfect, it's not exactly what Jaskier would have liked, then it’s at least good enough.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Geralt knocks on the door once and a short list slides under his door. Jaskier picks it up and scans the ingredients – nothing too fancy, not that he's a connoisseur of fine dining or anything. He learned the hard way that you have to drain pasta and use fresh water for the sauce. Or better yet, no water at all. </p><p>He slips his jacket on and grabs his wallet, eye catching on the guitar pick setting out on the counter. He picks it up, thumb sliding over the dull well-worn edges, the faded gold lettering.</p><p>Sure, things with Geralt aren’t going the way he might have hoped, but he can’t live his life alone.</p><p>Jaskier is tired of reacting to life – it’s time for him to carpe the diem. Impulsively, he grabs a notebook and flips to a blank page.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Dear friend,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m turning over a new leaf. I have found my mojo – or not my mojo, but a part of my mojo.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>—ok, it’s a guitar pick, but it’s important to me? It’s funny how we attach significance to inanimate objects, events, random penpals we’ve never even met.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>How can he feel so deeply connected to a stranger? And what is it that makes a stranger? Is their connection less significant for the fact that they don’t know what each other looks like? Jaskier isn't sure it matters – sometimes there’s a connection between souls and all those things that would stand between them in their day to day life – looks, age – it doesn’t matter on paper.</p><p>Could he change that? Maybe. He’s just now beginning to feel like he might be in control of his life, or at least marginally aware that he can let go of what he can’t control. He’s as ready as he'll ever be.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>We could change that, though. We could meet. Uh, let me know if you want to.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier rips the page out of the notebook and shoves it in an envelope before he can change his mind. He scrawls the address across the front and shoves Geralt's grocery list in his other pocket. He’ll drop the letter off in the mail on his way to pick up groceries.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Jaskier texts Geralt when he gets back, and then he spends fifteen minutes in a terror-filled tailspin, wondering what he’ll do if his librarian love rejects him: probably take up permanent residence in the gutter, drink himself silly in despair.</p><p>He unwraps the meat and thinks, yes, that’s a workable solution. He unpacks the rest of the food, laying it out for easy access, then roots around in his cabinets. He knows at one point, he had a cutting board. He finds it shoved in the back along with a knife that is hilariously dull and a few dinged-up pots and pans that he sometimes uses to make boxed meals.</p><p>Should he change his clothes? No, Jaskier decides, because they are just friends who assiduously do not kiss. He has no valid reason to impress Geralt.</p><p>Geralt knocks on the door a few minutes later, and Jaskier lets him in without thinking about how stunning his silver hair looks against the opaque black of his shirt. </p><p>He’s wearing the same clothes as he was earlier, and Jaskier congratulates himself on a decision well made not to change his clothes. Nothing like showing up to a casual party in a tuxedo. “I got the things you wanted,” Jaskier says, watching Geralt push his sleeves up further on his arms and wash his hands. His forearms flex, sparsely populated by soft blond hairs that he can only see when they’re caught by the light overhead.</p><p>Jaskier swallows and determinedly scans the groceries. “What are you making?”</p><p>“Going to fry some pork chops.” Geralt grabs the potatoes, rinses them, then starts chopping. “Cooks faster if you cut them small,” Geralt says at Jaskier’s enquiring look. “I suppose you don’t have rosemary?”</p><p>“You'd be assuming right.”</p><p>“Salt? Pepper?”</p><p>“I’m sure I’ve gotten some of those little packets with some takeout,” Jaskier mumbles, going through the drawers in his small kitchenette. Seeing Geralt in his kitchen is – disarming, the breadth of him taking up most of the cramped space, his hair gleaming in the bare light above the sink. He fits into his kitchen a little like he fits into Jaskier's life -- too big, too special, pushing his way in and taking up too much room in Jaskier's heart. The knife makes a snick-thump-snick-thump sound as he carefully dices the potatoes.</p><p>“Do you have a cookie sheet?”</p><p>“Ah,” Jaskier says, “that is to say—no.”</p><p>No cookie dough has ever made it to any kind of sheet in his apartment unless you count bedsheets where Jaskier inevitably dropped it while crying and eating it raw in bed.</p><p>“Any oven-safe glass dish?” Geralt tries.</p><p>“Probably,” Jaskier allows and roots around until he finds something workable, making a small victorious sound when he plops it next to Geralt.</p><p>He watches as Geralt finishes up, tossing the potatoes in oil and spreading them out on the pan, then sprinkling them liberally with salt and pepper. He slips it into the oven and then gets started on the pork chops.</p><p>“Oh, I can help with those," Jaskier says, jumping up. What he plans to do, he couldn’t say. He wouldn’t be able to fry a pork chop if his life depended on it, but it felt rude not to offer.</p><p>“Sit down before you lose a finger,” Geralt grunts, gently slapping Jaskier’s hands away.</p><p>He starts going through the cabinets before he finds flour and adds a generous helping to a plate. Jaskier watches with keen interest as Geralt washes and trims the meat, the double-coats it in flour while a pan of oil is heating on the stove. His movements are sure and steady, and for all their minimalism, strangely graceful. Jaskier uncorks a bottle of wine he picked up at the last minute and pours two generous glasses. He doesn’t have wine glasses but he can’t imagine that Geralt is particularly surprised when he slides a water glass half-filled with $10 wine. He isn't playing at elegance, here. It’s possibly the only time he hasn’t; Geralt doesn't demand that he’s anything other than what he already is.</p><p>There is a relief - a singular particular sort of beauty – in that.</p><p>“Thanks,” Geralt says, stopping to take a long pull from his bottom-shelf wine. He smacks his lips obnoxiously, and Jaskier has to hide his grin in his glass. He’s sitting at the counter, Geralt’s back to him. He’d complain about not being able to see what’s going on, but the view from here is spectacular.</p><p>“Do you have any herbs at all?” Geralt asks over his shoulder, sounding adorably plaintive.</p><p>Jaskier shrugs. “I think I've got a half-smoked joint around here somewhere.”</p><p>“I’ll pass,” Geralt says and tests the oil, listening to it sizzle.</p><p>“You don’t smoke the devil weed?” Jaskier teases. The wine’s kicking in; he feels warm, flushed, dangerously prone to saying whatever dumb shit tumbles into his head.</p><p>“No,” Geralt says, “stale weed tastes awful.” He drops the breaded pork chops into the oil and the apartment is immediately filled with the heady scent of cooking meat, breading becoming brown and crispy. Geralt leans down to check on the potatoes and Jaskier takes a delicate sip of his wine while eyeing the way Geralt’s pants strain aginst the generous curve of his ass. Geralt makes a satisfying sound and Jaskier jumps in his chair as Geralt turns around, leans against the counter across from Jaskier.</p><p>“What have you been up to?”</p><p>“Ah, you know. Singing songs, breaking hearts.”</p><p>There’s a ghost of a smile on Geralt’s mouth. “Is that right?"</p><p>It’s mostly been Jaskier’s own heart, but he decides to keep that information to himself.</p><p>After a couple of minutes, Geralt turns the pork chops, and the scent of sizzling meat fills the room, warm and salty and comforting. If he didn’t adamantly refuse to acknowledge that he lives in this subsidized hellhole, he’d be tempted to say the place finally smells like a real home.</p><p>Geralt leans down again and grabs the cookie sheet from the oven and flips the potatoes before closing the oven back up. “Nearly done,” he murmurs. He grabs two plates out of the cabinets, pulls the pork chops out of the pan, and turns off the stove.</p><p>“Refill?” Geralt asks, grabbing the wine bottle.</p><p>“God, <em>yes</em>,” Jaskier says, holding out his glass.</p><p>Geralt splits what’s left between the two of them and then takes the potatoes out of the oven. He scoops some onto Jaskier’s plate, then his own. He has to use a spoon because Jaskier used his spatula for some dubious sex stuff and hasn’t gotten around to replacing it because he doesn’t care.</p><p>Jaskier takes a bite, then immediately sucks cool air into his burning mouth. Oh fuck, that just came out of the oven. <em> “Ooooohhhhh ahhhhhhhh,”  </em>he groans, his mouth hanging open like a dog.</p><p>Geralt watches him from across the counter, arms crossed, and looking extremely unimpressed.</p><p>Once he can taste again, he wipes the tears from his eyes and then chews. The potatoes are browned, spicy with pepper; the pork is juicy, crispy on the outside. It’s delicious. “Holy shit, you made this with all the useless crap in <em>my </em>cabinets?”</p><p>“It would be better with a vegetable.” Geralt frowns down at the amazing food he’s made like it’s personally disappointed him by its lack of vegetation.</p><p>Jaskier can’t<em> believe </em>Geralt sometimes. Is the man incapable of cutting himself some slack? He laughs. “I think I have a can of beans around here somewhere.”</p><p>“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” Geralt says ruefully, but something unwinds inside of him, and he relaxes, leans forward, elbows propped up on the table, his black shirt gapping around his neck.</p><p>Aw fuck. Jaskier can see the shadow of Geralt’s collarbones, graceful sweeps of bones jutting out from beneath the straining fabric. This is so, so dangerous. But Geralt is looking at him, warm and fond, and he can't remember the last time someone cared enough to come into his space and cook for him. He can’t remember the last time someone even tried.</p><p>He swallows. “This is—really, really great. Thanks.”</p><p>Geralt looks down but looks pleased with himself. “It’s no big deal.”</p><p>Jaskier raps his knuckles against the Formica to get Geralt to look up at him and when he does, Jaskier holds his gaze. Some things are too important. "No, really. Thanks.”</p><p>“You’re welcome," Geralt says.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>It’s been a week and Jaskier hasn’t received a response to his proposal to meet with his angry librarian</p><p>He’s disappointed, but he’ll be okay, he thinks. Not all risks pay off – he’s trying to be okay with this. It’s easier said than done, but it’s still worth working towards, he thinks. Internal peace, what would that feel like?</p><p>It’s Wednesday when he unveils his new catalog of songs on classy octagenarian day, which is received well. He takes a few dramatic bows at the polite applause, thinking about his advice to Geralt. If he doesn’t enjoy the good moments, then what is it all for?</p><p>As he’s packing up, he spies Triss hovering around the door.</p><p>“Break time?” he asks, snapping the latches on his guitar case closed. His guitar pick, he keeps in his pocket, the familiar shape a comfort.</p><p>“Only if you don’t mind me corrupting you some more,” she says.</p><p>“Darling, I’m afraid I was corrupted a long time ago,” Jaskier drawls and follows her out back towards the dumpsters.</p><p>He waits for her to light up her cigarette, then holds up a hand to politely decline when she offers him one. He leans his forearms against the rail, enjoying the breeze kicked up by the night air. It catches on Triss' curly hair and pulls it up in a wild dark cloud behind her.</p><p>“I haven’t gotten any new calls so I’m going to have to go trolling for gigs again," Jaskier says. "Be prepared to hear about me as the most stylish performer at kid’s birthday parties.”</p><p>“Speaking of kids--”</p><p>“I was joking,” Jaskier groans. “I don’t currently have any plans to take the pre-teen market by storm.”</p><p>“No--” she waves her hands, barely missing taking out one of his eyes with her cigarette stub “--hear me out. It’s not very exciting but if you want to play at the library? Once a week in the evening, they have live music for the kid’s corner. They can pay – not like, a<em> lot</em>, but some?”</p><p>Jaskier takes a minute to weigh his options and decide how much he likes being able to eat and pay bills versus his dignity. As it turns out, dignity isn't worth all that much. “Text me the number,” he grudgingly allows. “How did you even find out about this gig?”</p><p>“A disastrous one-sided affair,” Triss says glumly. “Ever had one of those?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jaskier says, thinking of his own personal mess – with not only one, but two men. That must be record dumbassery somewhere. Some village must be missing its idiot. “But at least I got some moody songs out of it.”</p><p>“Anything new?”</p><p>“Just what you heard tonight,” Jaskier replies.</p><p>“Oh, you poor fuck,” Triss says and she sounds like she means it.</p><p>Jaskier turns to stare at her. “What?”</p><p>“You dummy,” Triss says, not without affection. “You’re not writing sad songs, you’re writing love songs.”</p><p>“Well, I--” Jaskier stammers, caught by surprise. He’s been writing those songs since he first started writing to his penpal – was he really in that deep from the very beginning? It seems unlikely, and even more unwise, but try as he might, he’s never been able to control his heart. He’d have better luck turning back the ocean tides with a shovel and bucket. “Well, I’m not in love with you,” is all he manages.</p><p>Triss snorts inelegantly.</p><p>Jaskier blinks. “Wait, you weren’t talking about me, were you? You’re not in love with me?”</p><p>Triss laughs insultingly hard, hair shaking behind her.</p><p>“It’s not that far-fetched,” Jaskier mutters. “Many people have been in love with me.” He thinks back, then amends his statement: “At least one person has been sort of in love with me.”</p><p>Triss shakes her head. “Sorry, my love trends more towards the sapphic.”</p><p>“Did I know that about you? I feel like I didn’t know what about you?”</p><p>“Well," Triss says lightly, "it’s not like I go around wearing an 'I love vaginas t-shirt'."</p><p>“What a statement if you did, though,” Jaskier says with admiration. “So who is your lady love?”</p><p>Tess sighs; it’s an unbearably sad sound. “ I met her at the library one day, and we really hit it off. I thought – well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. She’s an entertainment lawyer, and I'm just a nurse in an old folk's home.</p><p>“A classy old folks home,” Jaskier offers, and gestures at himself, “ with live entertainment.”</p><p>“Yeah, you’re a real class act, Jas,” Triss says dryly. “Besides, it’s more complicated than that – she’s hung up on her ex-husband. It’s a real goddamn mess.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jaskier agrees, thinking about his own weird love triangle which isn’t a triangle at all. It’s more of a Venn Diagram of vaguely interested parties. “How<em>  do  </em>rubes like us end up with the beautiful people?”</p><p>It always seems like they can look, but they can’t touch in any way that matters, and it silently confirms one of Jaskier’s most intimately held fears – that he will always care about people a little more than they care about him.</p><p>“We don’t,” Triss says, stubbing out her cigarette savagely against the railing, “that’s what sucks about it.”</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>When he gets back to his apartment, he absentmindedly checks his mail. He’s long given up expecting a response to his letter, so when he sees the familiar letterhead, he has to stop and stare for a full minute. His hands shake as he rips open the letter, right there in the mail vestibule, which perplexingly smells like a mix of salty pretzels and sweaty gym socks.</p><p>Anyone could walk in, probably wonder why a grown man looks like he’s going to cry, but he doesn’t care. Jaskier needs to know.</p><p>He unfolds the letter and inside, there’s only one hastily scribbled word: <em> Yes. </em></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come find me on twitter - @fatalewrites - i'm lonely in my corner of the witcher fandom :(</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Four days later, Jaskier has a gig for the library set up and he’s looking down at a letter from his penpal. He hadn’t answered, unsure of what to say. He wants to meet his friend, but he’s afraid too. He’s not worried about his penpal disappointing him, but the other way around. Jaskier’s been told his whole life that he’s nothing special and he’s begun to believe them.</p><p>Inside, the letter says:</p><p>
  <em> Sorry for the abrupt response last time. My life is complicated right now, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to add another element to it.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m still not sure it is, but I want to meet. How about next Friday? 9 pm? </em>
</p><p>Aw, shit. Okay, they’re really going to do this. At the bottom of the letter, there’s a phone number. Jaskier doesn’t put it in his phone yet, it makes the whole thing feel too real, but he carefully tears it away and tucks it into his wallet.</p><p>Friday is also his gig at the library, but he should be done in time to meet up.</p><p>He rips a page out of his notebook and writes “See you then. Text me where you want to meet” and adds his own phone number. The ball’s back in his penpal’s court, so to speak. Jaskier’s been too proactive lately; he’s all out of gumption. He’s hollow and gumptionless, confused and on the verge of being not young enough to be mired in so much self-destructive bullshit. Good god, soon, he'll be doing his taxes early or something. </p><p>Later, he has a gig at a local coffee shop where he’s working for a small fee, tips, and all the overpriced java he could want. The good thing about these coffeeshop jobs is that no one parties at coffeeshops well into the night so they end early enough for him to still have some time to relax afterward. It used to give him time to go out clubbing; now, it gives him time to watch terrible tv and talk with Geralt. He can't say that he regrets the change. </p><p>He trudges over to his refrigerator and opens the door. He keeps it stocked lately for Geralt, who has taught him how to make an omelet and toast. He has mastered the toast and he’s fair to middling at the omelet. Hey, he's a work in progress.</p><p>Jaskier tries anyway, cracking the eggs, whisking them with a little milk, and pouring them carefully into a skillet. He adds some bacon and cheese to the center, watches the egg bubble, then carefully folds it in half. The results are – not bad. And at least 85% less burned than they might have been a year ago. Look at him, all grown up and making four-ingredient dinners. </p><p>He eats standing up and rifling through his notebook, making notations and word changes in his newest songs. He’s writing a couple of songs for his library job because while some of his music is acceptable for small children, the majority is not. </p><p>Once he finishes his food, he washes up, straightens the apartment, and then eyes the ever-present stack of teetering books that began this whole mess. He feels like he ought to try reading them, if for nothing more than the fact that it keeps him from feeling like a complete turd for keeping them all for the better part of a year. </p><p>With a sigh, he takes the first book and starts reading. </p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Two days later and not at all at a shameful hour, Jaskier’s cheerfully coming home from a relaxed gig that mostly paid in compliments and peanuts. But lately, he’s mostly just grateful to try all his new material out on an audience captive to the watered-down two-dollar margaritas. It still feels good to get his music out there, even if it is mostly to drunk soccer moms. He frowns when he sees Geralt trudging down the hallway. He’s moving painfully slow like every step is a chore, his body weighed down. Jaskier opens his apartment door and tosses his gear thoughtlessly inside, locking it up behind him, and heading down the hall. </p><p>When he gets closer, Jaskier sees that Geralt's head is down and he’s leaning against the wall as if it’s the only thing holding him upright. It’s raining outside, thunder booming overhead, and Geralt is dripping with water. Jesus, did he walk home in this weather?</p><p>“Geralt?” he calls out, and when Geralt fails to acknowledge him, Jaskier goes over, grabs his arm. He’s ice-cold, skin goose-pimpled, clothes plastered to his body. Jaskiershivers just looking at him. “The fuck happened?”</p><p>Finally, Geralt answers, “I told Yen it was over.”</p><p>“I think she probably got the message by the divorce,” Jaskier says a little sardonically because he's just awful at emotional intimacy. </p><p>Geralt glares at him; it's an impressive feat, considering he looks not unlike a soggy kitten. “For real this time. We aren’t going to see each other again. She cried.” Geraly closes his eyes. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”</p><p>Jaskier feels his expression softening. “I don’t think you can do anything. Sometimes people just have to cry to get something out of their system. It's not always a bad thing.” He steps closer, wrapping his arm around Geralt’s shoulder, taking some of his weight. “It sucks but you can’t fix everything.” He steers Geralt down the hall towards his own apartment. “C’mon, big guy, let’s get you changed and warmed up. You’re going to get pneumonia.”</p><p>Geralt follows him, muttering, “I’ve fucked everything up,” through blue-tinged lips </p><p>“Not everything,” Jaskier comforts. “Like, your shirt? Sure. Your life? Nah. We all fuck up all of the damn time and life keeps giving us chances because perfection is boring.”</p><p>He’s practically holding Geralt up now in front of his door, which is locked. </p><p>“Back pocket,” Geralt says, looking like a strong wind might knock him over. </p><p><em>Jesus</em>, Jaskier thinks, and props Geralt up next to him and awkwardly reaches around him, fishing through his tight back pocket while trying to ignore how incredibly nice and firm his ass feels against Jaskier’s hand. Get a grip. Perving on your heartbroken best friend, Jaskier chastizes himself, is such a creeper move.</p><p>He grabs the keys, tries them all until one opens the door, then he takes hold of Geralt again and steers him inside, closing the door behind him. </p><p>“Come on,” Jaskier says. He tosses the keys onto the counter. He hasn’t been back to Geralt’s place since that first time, but while it doesn’t look homely, it at least looks like it's inhabited by a human man and not some homeless golem.</p><p>Geralt has, he notices, even taped a poster up on the far wall. It is of the food pyramid, the kind of poster that they give to little kids in school to remind them to eat their vegetables.</p><p>“Oh, Geralt,” Jaskier sighs affectionately. He steers Geralt towards the open bathroom. “I’ll take care of you.”</p><p>“Why are you doing this?” Geralt asks. His hair is in his eyes, and he shivers slightly in the cool bathroom. </p><p>“You helped me,” Jaskier says simply. “Off with those wet clothes.” </p><p>He turns away and runs a warm bath in the tub. Geralt has one of those old-fashioned clawfoot types, which Jaskier is assiduously not incredibly jealous of. On the porcelain lip, there’s a bottle of scented Epsom salts, which is surprising as much as it is typical of Geralt – just when Jaskier gets the sense that he knows the breadth of him, all the inner mechanics of his personality, Geralt does something that unveils a new piece of him, and the puzzle expands past what Jaskier had ever imagined. </p><p>When he looks over, Geralt is still staring at the same part of the wall, fully dressed. </p><p>Jaskier sighs and steps closer, strips Geralt’s sodden shirt off of him.</p><p>He tries to keep it clinical, but it’s Geralt, godamnit. The shirt hits the floor with a wet slap, then Jaskier unbuttons Geralt’s pants, lowers the zipper. “You’re going to have to do this part, big guy,” Jaskier says quietly. </p><p>He looks determinedly up at the ceiling as he hears Geralt kick his shoes off, then his pants. There is a crack running along the edge that kind of looks like a mountain range. He hears Geralt finally step into the water and when Jaskier looks down, Geralt is sitting in the bath, head leaned back against the edge, his hair spilling down behind him. </p><p>“Scoot forward,” Jaskier instructs. Without thinking about it too much, Jaskier strips off his shirt, kicks off his shoes and socks, and then slips in behind him. </p><p>“Jas--” Geralt starts.</p><p>“Shh.” Jaskier tilts Geralt’s head back against his shoulder, untangling the long strands with his fingers. He uses his cupped hands to rinse out Geralt’s hair, then grabs the shampoo behind him. He washes and rinses his hair, then follows with conditioner, massaging his scalp until Geralt's shoulders are loose, his head loling back against Jaskier's chest.</p><p>Geralt lets out a breath as Jaskier rinses the last of it from his hair. </p><p>“It's not Yen, exactly. We'd fallen out of love a long time ago. It's just that -- I’m a failure.” His voice is scratchy, low. “I’ve disappointed everyone in my life.”</p><p>I’m a failure. How many times has Jaskier told himself this?</p><p>“You’ve only failed if you’ve given up,” Jaskier says. His hands still. “So, keep going. I will if you will.”</p><p>“Okay,” Geralt rasps. </p><p>The water is cooling around them and Jaskier does not have dry clothes. But still, he thinks, it’s worth it for the way that Geralt has stopped shivering against him, for the way his heart beats slow and steady against Jaskier’s thumb as he rubs small circles into Geralt’s skin. </p><p>“We should probably get out,” he says a little regretfully. He shifts, the wet material of his jeans sticking uncomfortably. “Think you can dress yourself?”</p><p>Jaskier stands, careful not to look down at Geralt’s no doubt delectable naked body. Oh, the feel of wet denim is just the<em> worst</em>. Without quite meaning to, nearly reflexively because it just feels right, Jaskier leans down and kisses the top of Geralt’s head where his hair is already drying, gleaming like the sunlight over fresh snow. </p><p>Geralt clears his throat. “The bottom drawer of the dresser, there are some sweatpants that should fit you.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Jaskier says, sloshing his way out the door. Helplessly, he glances back one last time to see Geralt leaning forward, hands wrapped around his knees and hair falling in a pale waterfall around his face, his neck flushed bright red. </p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p> In the bedroom, Jaskier turns on the bedside lamp and rifles through his drawers until he finds a suitable outfit. </p><p>Jaskier pulls on Geralt’s sweatpants quickly, balling up his own jeans and tossing them in the corner. He grabs one of Geralt’s shirts. The sweats fit okay once he ties the drawstring tighter, but the shirt is stretched ridiculously big, neck torn at the collar. He looks, Jaskier notes critically in the mirror, like he’s wearing a deflated balloon. </p><p>Geralt’s bedroom, at least, looks incredibly lived-in, the bed carefully made. The furniture was obviously purchased for functionality rather than looks, sturdy but inelegant and a horrid orange-toned oak. The sheets and comforter are navy blue, which good lord – ok. Jaskier’s working desk is actually a fold-up card table, so he guesses he isn’t one to talk.</p><p>“You shouldn’t have come here.”</p><p>At Geralt’s voice, Jaskier whirls around in surprise. </p><p>Geralt is leaning against the doorjamb, a towel slung low around his hips. Irritatingly, he’s brushed his hair, put half of it up, and looks perfect. He catches Geralt staring a the gap in the neck where the shirt nearly falls off Jaskier’s shoulder. When he realizes he's been caught, Geralt guilty drags his gaze back up to Jaskier’s face. </p><p>Jaskier licks suddenly dry lips. “Yes,” he agrees, “because being alone and brooding is the perfect way to handle emotion.”</p><p>"It’s not that,” Geralt says, frustrated. “I can’t depend on you--”</p><p>It's nothing he hasn't been told before, but coming from Geralt, it hurts. Jaskier feels his mouth twist painfully. “Why? Because I’m such a loser--”</p><p>Geralt crosses the room, expression thunderous. “<em>Don’t say that about yourself </em>.”</p><p>“That’s what you were trying to say, wasn’t it?”</p><p>“No,” Geralt huffs. “You can’t depend on me--”</p><p>“Oh,” Jaskier says, understanding suddenly dawning. It never occurs to him that people like Geralt can be insecure too. He steps closer to Geralt, suddenly aware that he’s half-dressed, that they’re standing alone in Geralt’s ugly bedroom, three steps away from the bed. </p><p>He lays his hand against Geralt’s chest. “I trust you.”</p><p>“You shouldn't.” This close, he can see Geralt’s eyes dilate, feel his pulse speed up beneath his palm. </p><p>“See now? There you go again, always trying to control everything.” He is millimeters away from Geralt’s mouth now. “So why not just – let go? </p><p>This is a mistake, he knows it, but Jaskier's so tired of never getting anything he wants. He surges forward, capturing Geralt’s lips with his own. </p><p>Geralt’s lips are exactly as soft as he remembers. Jaskier reaches up, scrapes his hands through his hair, kisses that sharp jaw, Geralt’s stubble rasping against his chin. Geralt presses close, his hands running up and down Jaskier’s back, slipping inside his oversized shirt, fingernails lightly skimming his back.</p><p>He pulls off Geralt, gasping for air. </p><p>“Okay, okay,” Geralt says, stepping back and holding out his hand.</p><p>He’s giving Jaskier the option to come or to go. Jaskier chooses to come, terrible pun absolutely intended, and takes his hand as Geralt pulls him across the room towards the bed. </p><p>Geralt leans forward and kisses him again. He hadn’t realized before this moment that they were about the same height. It was like Jaskier had always seen himself as being a little smaller than he really was, like he had made himself lesser to appease other people. But he and Geralt fit together perfectly.</p><p>“Closer,” Geralt says. </p><p>Jaskier grins. “I can tell you want this sweet lovin’."</p><p>“Oops,” Geralt says flatly, “I’ve just lost interest.” He turns away towards the bed.</p><p>“Oh, you do not get to do that!” Jaskier yells and leaps towards Geralt, jumping on his back. </p><p>He manages to startle a laugh out of Geralt, who reflexively catches him, arms hooked beneath his knees and staggers forward. Geralt is still laughing when he drops Jaskier unceremoniously on the bed next to him, right onto that ugly comforter. </p><p>Jaskier lands with a soft oof, bouncing on the mattress. He looks up at Geralt, propped up on his elbows. </p><p>He can’t recall ever seeing Geralt laugh before; he’d thought maybe Geralt wasn’t a man meant for laughing -- brooding, yes, but not unfettered joy – but the sight looks so <em>right</em> that it sends a shock throughout Jaskier’s body, electric. He looks unspeakably lovely grinning wide, eyes crinkled in mirth. And he’s laughing because of <em>  Jaskier </em>. Jaskier reaches up and pulls Geralt down on top of him, presses his mouth against the wet heat of Geralt’s mouth. He uses Geralt’s surprise to flip their positions, neatly rolling on top of Geralt, knees bracketing his narrow waist. The towel, which has come undone, leaves Geralt looking like an unwrapped present laid out before him.</p><p>Geralt is a feast and Jaskier is<em> ravenous</em>.</p><p>“Take off your clothes,” Geralt says, voice ragged. “I want to see all of you.”</p><p>“Don’t expect me to look anything like you.” He is not, in general, ashamed of his body. He is in decent shape for however little fucks he gives about physical fitness and ever since platinum He-Man moved in next door, Jaskier has been making half-assed attempts to get into shape. Which is to say, he’s not<em> totally </em>unfortunate-looking. He has it on the good authority of many drunk people that he’ll do.</p><p>“If I wanted to see myself, I'd look in a mirror.” Geralt somehow manages to look exasperated and fed-up, still wet and lying naked on a towel. It’s a real talent. </p><p>Jaskier takes a deep breath and pulls off his shirt.</p><p>“Wow,” Geralt says, blinking up at him. “You are shockingly hairy.”</p><p>Those are not quite the words of awe and adoration that Jaskier was hoping for. “My mother says it’s adorable. Like a skinny teddy bear.” Even while he’s saying it, Jaskier acknowledges that a skinny teddybear sounds like the absolute worst thing. There’s a reason everyone sells overstuffed animals.</p><p>Geralt licks his lips. “It’s really – something.” He rubs his hands against Jaskier’s chest, the heels of his palms catching against his nipples. Jaskier gasps, pushes a little closer. Geralt’s gaze sharpens and he repeats the move, focusing on Jaskier’s nipples, catching the hard nubs between his finger and thumb, pinching lightly.</p><p>“Jesus, Geralt,” Jaskier says, biting his lip. His whole body sways forward.</p><p>“Take off your pants.” Geralt slips his hand low, reaches into the front of his sweatpants and twists. Jaskier immediately feels the knot loosen and release. The move is slick as hell, but Jaskier absolutely refuses to be impressed. </p><p>He does a little shimmy backward and kicks off his pants. They hit something behind him, but Jaskier doesn’t dare turn around and look. It is no doubt something else utilitarian and distressingly neutral. He’s got bigger things on his mind, which is to say that his dick wants to shrivel a little beneath Geralt’s close scrutiny, but it is also interested in Geralt in the<em> extreme</em>, so it settles somewhere at half-mast, distractingly close to the sensuous warmth of Geralt’s body, which he’s half-tempted to just cling to and rub one out. </p><p>Geralt lifts his hips and slips the towel out beneath him; it’s graceful and unawkward like everything else that motherfucker manages to do.</p><p>When Geralt is totally naked, sprawled out on his bed like some kind of pornographic dream, Jaskier has to force himself to breathe. Geralt is – simply put – unspeakably beautiful. But Jaskier isn’t entirely sure that the tightness in his chest is because of Geralt’s looks or because of some other messy too-large feeling that Jasker’s afraid to look straight on. So he approaches it sideways, scared and a little timid, like a tiny crab looking for predators on the way towards the Geralt-shaped all you can eat buffet.</p><p>He drops to his knees and shuffles forward. “Sit on the edge of the bed.”</p><p>Geralt obliges him and from this angle, Geralt’s dick is intimidatingly big. </p><p>It’s just the angle, Jaskier tells himself. It is not actually a horse dick. It just looks like it.</p><p>When he’s between Geralt's knees, Jaskier kisses the inside of Geralt’s thigh, feeling the muscles jump beneath his lips. It’s a heady feeling, this absolute power, suffusing through his body and warming him all over. He makes his way up from Geralt’s scarred knee to the crease of his thigh, Geralt leaning back on the bed held up by shaking arms. There are marks and scars, a thousand stories and memories Jaskier has yet to learn. He pays special attention to the scars, to the places that hurt Geralt and left their marks. </p><p>Finally, he kisses the tip of Geralt’s cock – hard, leaking, red – and sucks the crown into his mouth, enjoying Geralt’s bit-off moan, the hot feel of him against his tongue as he struggles to take Geralt further in.</p><p>“Jaskier, Jas--” Geralt’s saying, a hand dropping down to the back of Jaskier’s head, fingers tightening in his hair. Geralt opens his hand and gentles his grip, but Jaskier reaches back and firmly closes Geralt’s fist around the damp strands.</p><p>Obligingly, Geralt tugs at Jaskier’s hair, guiding his dick into his mouth, fucking his face gently at first, then harder as Jaskier makes appreciative noises.</p><p>He’s always loved this part; this feral wanting, the heat low in his belly, the over-stretched ache in his jaw. He runs his tongue along the underside of Geralt’s thick cock, takes his hand and grasps the base, meeting his lips halfway. He means to get Geralt off this way, so he can’t stop the disappointed sound he makes when Geralt stops, grabs Jaskier’s shoulder, and carefully pulls out.</p><p>Until Geralt says, “Fuck me.”</p><p>Jaskier doesn’t need to be told twice. He scrambles up off his knees. “Do you have, uh--”</p><p>“Side table,” Geralt replies, sounding a little dazed. There’s a light sheen of sweat across his chest, his collarbones. Jaskier wants to lick them, and he realizes that for once, the only thing stopping him is himself. He leans forward, hand braced on Geralt’s hip, and carefully runs his tongue across the delicate sweep of bone. </p><p>Geralt’s breathing hitches and he says, “I’m going to need you to fuck me right now.”</p><p>“Yeah, that-- yeah.” Jaskier nearly falls in his eagerness to get to the side table. Inside, there are tissues and lube, and Jaskier has to push down a surge of fondness. It’s very much like Geralt – brief and to the point, no artifice. He pushes the items aside. “Hey, Geralt? Where are your condoms?”</p><p>Geralt sits up abruptly. “Oh,<em> shit</em>. I never bring people back here.”</p><p>"Never mind,” Jaskier says and pulls the lube out, tosses it on the bed. “I have one in my wallet.” He shuffles around, looking through his clothes until he finds his trousers and pulls out his wallet. Nestled inside, between two crinkled bills and a torn-off phone number, is his lucky condom. Perhaps it’s not terribly lucky, seeing as he hasn’t had the opportunity to use it so far, but it’s here for Geralt so maybe it’s the luckiest fucking item in the universe.</p><p>“That’s a bad place to keep it.”</p><p>“Well,” Jaskier says consideringly, “I did spot some tinfoil on your counter.”</p><p>“We’ll use that one,” Geralt quickly replies. He scoots up further on the bed. “Come here,” he says, and Jaskier knee-walks across the bed to settle in between his legs. He takes one of the pillows and shoves it beneath Geralt’s ass. At some point, Geralt's hair has come undone from the neat little half-ponytail he favors and it’s wild around his face, errant tangled snarls catching the dim light. He looks wild and undone in the same way that Geralt seems to undo Jaskier, to unknot the anxiety of his life, bulldozing through the various ways he shields himself just by being okay with Jaskier. By the way he wordless accepts him – messiness and all – and asks for nothing in return. </p><p>“You sure about this?”</p><p>“I need you.”</p><p>Jaskier can't stop his wistful smile. “I thought you said you didn’t want to need anyone.”</p><p>“And yet, here we are,” Geralt says and brushes Jaskier’s sweat-cooled strands of hair back from his face where they’re sticking uncomfortably to his fevered skin. </p><p>“Okay,” Jaskier says and kisses him again before he slicks a finger up and reaches down, pressing it into Geralt, where he’s hot, tight. He kisses Geralt’s neck to distract him, sucks a bruise there until it’s dark purple, then scrapes his teeth over the tender skin. He adds another finger, gives them a little twist when Geralt's relaxed around the newest addition. He moves his mouth down to Geralt’s dusky nipples, sucking and then lightly using his teeth until the dark peaks are puffy, swollen, and spit-slick.</p><p>“I’m ready,” Geralt says, his head tossed back against the dark blue pillow, his hair splayed out like liquid mercury against the dark cotton. Jaskier takes back all his previous uncharitable thoughts about this room; the navy blue sheets are a revelation. With his pale skin and even paler hair, Geralt looks like nothing as much as a flame flickering at midnight. Jaskier can already tell that he’s going to write a thousand dumbass songs as an ode to this exact image.</p><p>“Jesus, Jesus,” Jaskier mutters, “okay.” He pulls his fingers out and somehow manages to open the condom and get it on with shaking hands, then slicks himself up. Time is moving funny; rapid and all jerky like his movements, like the rabbit-fast beat of his heart. He looks down, shocked that he’s lined up against Geralt, pressing inside slowly.</p><p>Geralt’s eyes are screwed shut, mouth open, concentrating on the torturously slow slide inside him. “Tell me, tell me.”</p><p>Jaskier doesn’t need to ask; he knows what Geralt needs. Possibly because he recognizes the same yawning need in himself, probably always has. It’s hard to say what brings some people together. Maybe the why doesn’t even matter so much as the fact that it does. And Jaskier can only be grateful for the fact of this moment. He can only ever thank the universe for Geralt. </p><p>“You’re so good for me, so beautiful,” Jaskier says, all manner of stupid shit that has ever slid through his head tumbling from his lips, completely unfiltered and horrifyingly sentimental. “I wanted you from the moment I saw you.”</p><p>So much of life is making the best of where you are instead of wishing to be somewhere better, and right now, he can’t imagine anywhere he’d rather be than in Geralt’s bed, kissing his neck, Jaskier’s hips pressing his knees wide.</p><p>He slots his mouth against Geralt’s, pushing in further, Geralt a tight, gripping heat around him.</p><p>“Jesus, you’re tight,” he groans.</p><p>“Believe me, it’s less pleasant on this end.”</p><p>Typical Geralt. Even while being fucked, he still manages to be a spiky little shit. “Such a fucking smartass,” Jaskier says, and he trembles to hear the naked affection in his own voice. He bottoms out slowly, gives Geralt some time to adjust until Geralt is pushing back impatiently against his cock. </p><p>Jaskier pulls out a bit and pushes back in, feeling a bit like all the air has been sucked out of the room, it’s so hard to breathe. He settles into a slow pace until Geralt says, “I’m not fucking made of glass, get on with it.”</p><p>Jaskier laughs and speeds his pace up, hauls one of Geralt’s legs underneath his arm so he can get further, deeper. He angles his hips slightly and Geralt makes a rough, punched-out sound. “Oh fuck,” he gasps out, scratching his blunt nails roughly down Jaskier’s back.</p><p>Jaskier pounds into him, the mattress creaking beneath their bodies. He finally hitches both of Geralt’s legs up, sweat gathering at his temples, on his chest. A single drop collects and then falls onto Geralt’s cheek as Jaskier leans down, nearly folding Geralt in half, and kisses him wet and sloppy, open-mouthed and panting. He swipes his tongue against Geralt’s teeth and then further, briefly wondering if Geralt can taste his own musk against his tongue. </p><p>He reaches down, thumb resting against the obscene stretch of Geralt’s ass around his cock, where he’s open and stretched and undoubtedly sore as Jaskier fucks into him wildly, losing his rhythm, speeding up. He grinds his hips down, getting as deep as he can, Geralt’s feet resting against his back, urging him on.</p><p>And then Jaskier comes, shaking, muscles tense, Geralt sighing against his mouth.</p><p>Afterward, Jaskier drops Geralt’s legs, body shocky and thrumming. He lets himself fall against Geralt’s sweaty chest, presses a lazy kiss against the rosy flushed skin there. </p><p>Geralt is patient for a moment before he makes an impatient noise and pushes his hips up against Jaskier’s pointedly. </p><p>“Oh, yeah,” Jaskier mutters, a little embarrassed. He slides down Geralt’s body and blows him lazily, two fingers shoved into Geralt’s ass where Geralt is loosened and slick and squelching around his fingers with a noise that Jaskier finds equal amounts embarrassing and unbearably sexy.</p><p>He manages to take Geralt nearly down to the root when Geralt’s back arches and he comes with a low cry. Jaskier tastes the bitter-salt taste of him against his tongue and swallows as he gently pulls off. </p><p>“That was--” Geralt says and trails off. He’s lying on his back, sprawled out bonelessly, his softening cock against his leg.</p><p>"Yeah," Jaskier agrees, feeling muzzy and fucked-out and stupid.</p><p>Eventually, Geralt gets up and comes back a couple of minutes later with a wet washcloth, which he tosses at Jaskier. Jaskier uses it to half-heartedly clean up. And then Geralt takes it and then lays down beside Jaslier, slipping beneath the covers. He leaves a noticeable gap for Jaskier. </p><p>“Oooh, you mean I get to stay?”</p><p>“Go the fuck to sleep, Jaskier,” Geralt says, the corners of his mouth tipped into a smile. Jaskier yanks the covers over himself, then leans over and turns out the light. After he's settled in, Geralt rolls over on his side, grabs Jaskier’s arm and tugs him close up against his back.</p><p>“I knew you’d be the fucking little spoon,” Jaskier whispers in his ear as he drifts off to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>When he wakes up, Geralt is sleeping next to him. Jaskier gazes down at him, at the dark fan of his eyelashes, the regular rise and fall of his chest. It is terrifying, how in love he could be with Geralt, if he let himself. It scares him down to his very bones, makes him feel flayed open and exposed. </p><p>But he can’t start anything right now, not while he still has his meeting with his angry librarian hanging over his head. He can’t handle the morning after, trying to explain all the things that scare him while Geralt just sits there, wordlessly accepting his crazy. </p><p>Jaskier's feelings, crystal-clear in the hushed dark of last night, feel like a wretched tangle this morning, illuminated by the buttery-soft morning light spilling in through the windows. Jaskier just needs some time to <em>think</em>, to sort out this thing with his penpal, to sort out his feelings in general without Geralt staring at him in his distressingly frank way, tipping Jaskier's world over and over and over.</p><p>Feeling like kind of a shit, he slips out of bed and gathers his clothes, pulling them on as quietly as possible. </p><p>He knows he’s going to regret this later – <em> he knows, goddamnit  </em>– but he leaves anyway, Geralt sleeping alone in his bed, arm outstretched towards empty space. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>Once inside his apartment, Jaskier pulls down some coffee filters and starts a pot of coffee. He has the brown organic undyed type of filters, which is not a subsect that he'd been aware existed until very recently. Unwittingly, Geralt has managed to worm his way into every aspect of his life. As the coffee begins brewing, bubbling and hissing in its old familiar theme song to his mornings, Jaskier wanders into his bathroom, pulling off articles of clothing as he goes. </p><p>He takes a nice, hot shower but it doesn't do anything to dispel the heavy weight of dread settled into the pit of his stomach.</p><p>When he steps out of the shower, Jaskier wraps a towel around his waist and cleans the fog off the mirror. </p><p>Standing in front of the tiny mirror in the bathroom, Jaskier eyes himself critically. There is a purplish mark above his right nipple, a half-crescent shape that he would bet good money perfectly matches Geralt’s teeth. He presses his fingers into the bruise, hissing at the deep aching throb. It’s Geralt, it’s Geralt everywhere – in his coffee, his goddamn kitchen, his marks all over Jaskier’s body. </p><p>Geralt, who he left to wake up alone in the morning like a ditched prom date. <em>Jesus wept</em>. Jaskier bangs his fist into the cracked porcelain sink. He has to get back there before Geralt realizes Jaskier left like a total tool. He doesn’t bother drying off, just pulls his dirty clothes back on, stumbling over the leg, and catching his shoulder against the tile wall.</p><p>“Ow, <em>fuck</em>,” he swears, but otherwise ignores it. The pain is nothing compared to the pain of his increasing stupidity. He feels not unlike the idiot who escaped from a village. They've probably sent out a search party by now.</p><p>On his way out the door, Jaskier thinks to turn off his coffeemaker. Nothing screams that you’re growing as a person quite like burning an entire apartment block down.</p><p>Hastily dressed, hair dripping into his eyes, he makes a run for Geralt's door when he realizes he’s missing his shoes. <em>Fuck it</em>, he thinks, limping across the filthy floor. “Ow, ow, fuck.” He figures he needs a tetanus shot anyway.</p><p>All said, it takes him less than thirty minutes to get back to Geralt’s apartment from when he left, and he quietly creeps into the bedroom, ready to slip back into bed like he’d never had a psychological meltdown and run away. At first glance, he heaves a sigh of relief when he sees nothing changed. But he needn't have bothered being stealthy.</p><p>The ceiling fan is still going, Geralt’s basic-bitch curtains blowing gently. The sun is up and it looks like it’s going to be a devastatingly beautiful day. But Jaskier barely notices any of that because his gaze is glued to the mussed navy sheets where he can practically see Geralt laid out beneath him, gasping his name. The sheets in his bed, which are now completely empty. Geralt is gone.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Jaskier is running late, again. He shifts his guitar case on his back, heaving himself up the imposing stairs and through the front door of the public library. They have security here, for chrissakes.</p><p>He pinches his cheeks, tries to make himself feel better because kids are little perceptive assholes, and it’s not their fault that he’s a great big relationship fuckup. Throughout the day, he drank like, six cups of coffee to stay awake, cleaned his entire apartment, and attempted to make a batch of cookies that ended up weirdly dense. Seriously, if he ever decides to kill anyone, he could weigh the body down in the river with a single one of his homemade cookies. </p><p>He arrives at the library overheated and with noticeable sweat-stains under his armpits. After this gig, he’d planned to meet his penpal in a longstanding agreement. Never let it be said that Jaskier doesn't aim to impress. </p><p> “You’re late,” Triss hisses as he makes his way to the back room, chest heaving, skid marks all over the pristine marble flooring in his wake. “Do you know how long I had to entertain those little bastards?” Her curly hair is frizzing at the edges; she is also weirdly sweaty. Perhaps they should start a club. </p><p>Jaskier purposefully gives her a wide berth. “Sorry.”</p><p>A slight body topped by a wild riot of curly platinum hair bumps into him from behind. “Excuse me, tiny gremlin.” He’s no expert on kid’s ages, hasn't been around them since he was a kid himself, but he thinks this one looks too old for the sing-along, which he has been told is horrifyingly full of toddlers.</p><p>“Oh.” She looks up at him, blinking enormous blue eyes, which currently look deeply unimpressed. “You must be the entertainment.”</p><p>“Well, I’m not a stripper but I’ll do my best," he jokes.</p><p>She does not smile.</p><p>Jaskier clears his throat. "I’m a musician," he hurriedly clarifies. “Not a stripper, which would be highly inappropriate in front of children. I sing but not in the nude. Oh, god, please don't have me arrested. I’m too young and pretty for prison. I’ll get traded around for a pack of smokes”</p><p> Ciri makes a noise. “You’ve got a high opinion of yourself. I’d say two cigarettes, tops.” </p><p>"You've got some glitter, right--" he points to her cheek, where a smudge of purple crests over one delicate cheekbone. It should look adorable; it is terrifying. </p><p>"I was making bookmarks for the kids." She flips her hair and heads towards the gaggle of squirming children. She tosses over her shoulder, almost as an afterthought, “ I’m just a volunteer, but I can get you set up. The head librarian is around here somewhere.” She frowns, looking particularly disgruntled. “Probably better that you don’t see him. He’s been in a mood today.”</p><p><em>Sounds like an asshole</em>, Jaskier thinks, and takes a deep breath before he swings his guitar over his shoulder, setting the case down, and leaning it up against a low shelf overstuffed with garish board books.</p><p>In the center of the toddler moshpit, there is a stool, presumably for him. Ciri wades into the mess and claps her hands. “The music’s <em> finally </em> here.”</p><p>Jaskier ignores her tone and elbows his way in after her.</p><p>“Please welcome Julian Pankratz!”</p><p>“Er,” Jaskier corrects hesitantly, “no one calls me that except my parents. I usually go by Jaskier.”</p><p>“Whatever,” Ciri says, sounding tired.</p><p>Jaskier perches on the edge of his stool. “Good evening, tiny humans.” A curly-headed blond child chews his fist experimentally. A line of drool appears and runs down his chin.</p><p>Ah, an audience of sophisticated tastes, he sees. </p><p>“Yes, uh,” Jaskier says and begins on his first song. Gradually, the kids quiet down and start listening. They form a half-assed semicircle around him, and as he finishes up his first song and gears up for his next, he looks up.</p><p>Standing at the edge, nearly hidden by shadows, is Geralt, who notices him looking and scowls darkly, then turns, disappearing among the stacks like an angry, sexy apparition borne of Jaskier’s immense thirst. He’s opening his mouth to shout out to him, but Ciri gives his side a sharp pinch. “You’re awful for such a cute tiny person,” he solemnly informs her.</p><p>She gives him a shark-like grin that reminds him unerringly of Geralt. Why is it his lot in life to be surrounded by improbably attractive and mean people?</p><p>He launches into another song, voice a little wobbly. As he sings, his voice gradually gains strength, surety. This is what he loves about what he does – all his problems, even those of his own making, seem to just melt away. Nothing matters except the next chord and then the one after that, his connection with his audience like a live thing, twisting and growing.</p><p>The set finishes earlier than he’s prepared for. It isn’t until he opens his eyes and looks around that he even realizes that he’d closed them in the first place. Some children have wandered away, but the majority are watching him raptly.</p><p>He bows while the parents politely clap and then puts his guitar away. When he’s done, he looks around for Geralt but can’t find him. Maybe he really was some desperation-induced hallucination, but he was distinctly wearing a name tag. The idea of Geralt as a librarian throws him a bit – when considering the options, Jaskier would have him pegged as a personal trainer or a professional ass-kicker, but the longer he thinks about it, the more librarian makes a weird kind of sense for Geralt’s quiet, stern personality. For all the strength and size of his body, Jaskier has never seen him use it carelessly or unkindly. He is careful with delicate things – from the way he lovingly handles books which look comically tiny in his hands, to perfectly cracking eggs as he shows Jaskier how to make an omelet, to the unutterably careful way he handles Jaskier's bruised and tattered heart.</p><p>Ciri is busy handing out the bookmarks she’d made earlier to the kids as they file out. Jaskier waits until the last of them leave and approaches her cautiously, not unlike one might approach a slumbering bear.</p><p>“Hey, have you seen Geralt?”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Oh, that is just<em> it</em>. “Never mind what I want with him. What are you, his guard dog?"</p><p>She bares her teeth. “Sure. And I bite too.”</p><p>Jaskier looks at her consideringly. "You're his friend," he realizes and sighs. “Look, I’m not here to hurt him. I just want to – apologize. I did something kind of terrible and I just want to – even if he doesn’t forgive me, I can’t be another person in his life that he beats himself up over.”</p><p>“He’s probably in his office,” Ciri says, expression softening. She gives him a curious look and points towards a door in the back.</p><p>She might say something else, but Jaskier isn’t listening. Like an arrow pointing true north, he's racing towards Geralt.</p><p>He finds him in his office, hunched over his desk. He’s writing out a list in a notebook, carefully pretending not to see Jaskier, silvery hair falling forward but not enough that Jaskier can’t see him in profile. His lovely profile – hard jawline, his strong nose, his soft, pursed lips.</p><p>Jaskier raps his knuckles against the doorjamb. “Hey, can we talk?”</p><p>Geralt keeps writing.</p><p>For fucks sake, Geralt is clearly not going to make this easy. <em> I hate you and your beautiful face</em>, he thinks tenderly. “Geralt, you big dweeb,” Jaskier says, overtaken by a wave of fondness. “You may have shitty taste in bed partners but I know for a fact that there’s nothing wrong with your hearing."</p><p>Geralt’s nose twitches and Jaskier tries his hardest and fails not to find it kind of adorable. He fails, just like he fails with anything in regards to Geralt. He told Geralt it was okay to depend on him and he failed. He told himself that he wouldn't fall in love with Geralt and he failed at that too. But he's not going to fail to make this right with him.</p><p>Where is the Hallmark card for “Sorry I'm a shitbag that fucked you and then ran off like a total fucking coward”? In lieu of that, Jaskier does what he does best: he barges right the fuck in like he owns the place. “Guess I owe you an apology, huh?”</p><p>A muscle in Geralt’s jaw twitches and he doesn’t look up, but he does kick a chair out from across his desk with his scandalously long legs. Jaskier squares his shoulders. It's as good an invitation as he's likely going to get.</p><p>Jaskier sits across from him for a moment, the sound of Geralt’s pen scratching against the paper the only sound in the small muffled space. “Will you look at me?” Jaskier asks softly.</p><p>Finally, Geralt looks up at him, and whatever Jaskier is expecting to see, it's not the sheer helplessness there now. "Why didn't you tell me your name was Julian?"</p><p>Jaskier doesn’t see what that has to do with anything. “Because only my mother calls me that?” he answers, shrugging. “Why didn't you tell me you worked at the library? Did I know you worked at the library? How did I not know you worked at the library?”</p><p>“I assumed you knew.”</p><p>"Why would I know that? Do librarians have some kind of secret code?"</p><p>"Yes," Geralt says solemnly. </p><p>"Oh--" Jaskier says. It makes sense, librarians are some of the sneakiest, most haughty people he knows. "--really?"</p><p>Geralt frowns, which is a welcome change from his usual expression of vague irritation. "Of course not.” His expression clearly adds, <em>Stupid</em>.</p><p>Jaskier is desperately trying to think of a suave way to approach the fact that they had mind-meltingly hot sex last night and he might have grown unwisely attached to Geralt's stupid, gorgeous face, but he catches sight of the clock on the wall behind Geralt and if he's going to meet his penpal tonight, he needs to make arrangements now-ish. But for the first time since this whole thing began, Jaskier second-guesses his decision to meet his friend. He wants to meet him but he also desperately wants to have this discussion with Geralt. He needs this, maybe more than he’s ever needed anything else.</p><p>Geralt’s desk is starkly functional with a surprisingly delicate Tiffany lamp at the corner. Geralt sees Jaskier studying it and offers, “It belonged to the lady who had this job before me.”</p><p>“Was she eighty?”</p><p>“That’s insulting,” Geralt says. Jaskier just gives him a look and he relents, admitting, “She was seventy-five.” A deeply annoyed line appears between his eyebrows.</p><p>Jaskier tilts his head, watching him carefully. “Why did you become a librarian?”</p><p> Geralt taps a restless finger against his desk, and the lamp on his desk catches the edge of him, outlines him in soft white gold. </p><p>Jaskier suddenly knows, with deep certainty, that he could stay here and talk to Geralt forever. Wants to, even, as long as they can get food delivered.</p><p>Jaskier sees the clocks again and it only takes him a split second to come to a decision. He’s tired of ignoring everything he has in hopes of something more. The grass is not always greener on the other side – sometimes your own lawn is really goddamn nice and you should stay there. Plant flowers, maybe. "Hang on," he mutters, pulling out his phone and wallet. </p><p>From inside the worn leather, he pulls out the corner of the letter with the phone number hastily scrawled on it. He taps out a quick message on this phone - 2nite's not good, another nite? - and adds the phone number and hits send.</p><p>On the desk, Geralt's phone beeps with an incoming message. </p><p>Jaskier doesn't give it much thought. He looks down at his phone, surprised to see he just accidentally texted Geralt. "Oh, for fucks sake," he mutters, and then goes back to his home screen, where he types out his message again, and very carefully adds the phone number in. He hits send with a flourish.</p><p>Geralt's phone pings again. Across from him, Geralt's staring at him like he's suddenly grown an extra head. </p><p>Later, Jaskier will hate himself a little for this, the sheer dumbassery of this moment but he says, “<em>Shit. </em> I keep accidentally texting you,” and he tries again.</p><p>Geralt’s phone gives a warning beep, a countdown to Jaskier’s imminent demise. Jaskier frowns. “Maybe I’m reading the number wrong? Here,” he says, setting the scrap of paper down on the desk between them. “What do you see?” As he turns the paper around, he scans the list Geralt’s written out, sees the handwriting and thinks,<em> Hey, I know that writing.  </em></p><p>The truth hits him with the gentle delicacy of a sixteen wheeler. He is a proverbial grease stain on the deeply shitty road they call life.</p><p class="western">“Oh, <em>no</em>,” he says.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading xx</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Jaskier is not proud of what happens next. “Just a sec--” he says, holding up one finger as he stands and pinwheels out of the room. Behind him, he can hear his chair clattering to the floor. It’s near closing time for the library, and a custodian is mopping the lobby floor out front. Heedless of the very real danger of slipping on the wet floor and busting his ass, he races across the marble and out the front doors, careening around the marble pillars at the last possible minute. They're probably pillars of knowledge. This is the type of fancy place that people like Geralt belong, with his withering stare, classically handsome features, and strange scattershot knowledge of random factoids. Jaskier had to decide earlier whether he wanted to wear his shirt that showed his nipples or not. One of these things is not like the other.</p><p>Outside, it has begun to rain, a light drizzle of moisture that always makes Jaskier’s hair curl in the most absurd ways. He presses his fist to his mouth and stares up into the cloudy gray sky. This morning, he thought it would be a glorious day -- that’s what all the damn weather reports promised – but it seems like even the atmosphere is out to get him. You never really do know how your day will go.</p><p>He tips his face up, hands pushed into the pockets of jeans. </p><p>The rain is cold, cleansing. In his pocket, his fingers brush against a hard shape and he grasps hold of it and pulls it out, even though he knows the shape of it better than he knows his own face. It’s his guitar pick – his mojo, the source of superpowers. It’s like Samson's hair or Batman’s angst. But he met Geralt while the pick was lost. And against his no-doubt better judgment, Geralt kept choosing to spend time with Jaskier anyway. Jaskier holds it up to the sky, that harsh unflattering light. Without the romance of dim lighting or supposed history, for the first time, it just looks like a scratched bit of warped celluloid. Nothing more, nothing less. There is nothing wrong with sentimental items but Jaskier doesn’t need them to know what he’s capable of.</p><p>There are three things he knows for sure: 1) Geralt is his penpal. 2) He came here to apologize to Geralt, and then he left Geralt after he tracked down Geralt specifically to apologize to him for leaving. 3) And that Jaskier liked Geralt from the very beginning -- he liked him as an anonymous pen pal, liked him as they cooked together and talked into the night, not to mention the bathing and the sex – and oh god, they were in love. Not even cute love, but the messy awful, terrified of pooping in your boyfriend’s apartment kind of love. </p><p>“Oh Jesus,” Jaskier says. He tosses the guitar pick out onto the street, doesn’t even bother to notes where it lands, and turns to run back into the library. </p><p> </p><p> ---</p><p> </p><p>“Fuck fuck fuck,” Jaskier chants under his breath. Another librarian at a cart reshelving books gives him a dirty look, probably assuming that he’s one of those assholes that comes in five minutes before closing and asks a bunch of dumb questions. “I’m just searching for a guy,” Jaskier calls out, then realizes it makes him sound like he’s cruising the stacks for a hookup. “Not just any guy,” he clarifies, “a specific -- oh, never mind.” </p><p>When he gets to Geralt’s office, the door is locked and the lights are out. He leans his forehead against the door, his palm flat against the glossy wood. “Oh, shit.” He’s ruined everything. He doesn’t know why he keeps having such inconveniently-timed existential crisis. </p><p>After a few minutes, he peels himself off the door and goes to get his guitar. While he’s slinging the strap around his shoulders and heading towards the door, he catches a glimpse of white between the shelves over by the wall of beautifully preserved stained glass windows.</p><p>His steps slow, and he heads over, where he finds Geralt standing in front of the window on the far left, hip against the ledge. He's drinking from a mug that has a picture of a cat and says, Silently judging you, which might be one of the most appropriate things Jaskier has ever seen associated with Gealt. The light is streaming through the multicolored glass, bathing his pale skin in a wash of bright colors. He looks like a painting come to life. If Jaskier had to title it, he would call it, “Vaguely dumb man, possibly also the love of Jaskier's life."</p><p>“Hey." As far as openings go, it could be worse. </p><p>Geralt looks startled. “Didn’t know if you’d be back.”</p><p>Jaskier leans against the wall next to Geralt and rubs the back of his neck. “Neither did I for a moment there, but I never do seem to be able to stay away from you.” He shifts closer to get a better look at what Geralt is drinking. He can only guess that the gritty black sludge might have started out life as coffee. “That looks terrible. “</p><p>“Ciri made it,” Geralt says and takes another sip from the cup that Jaskier would bet good money was also a gift from Ciri. </p><p>“You’re close,” Jaskier observes. </p><p>“She’s a good kid,” Geralt says as he dutifully drinks her wretched brew. </p><p>“Did you know it was me that you were writing to?” Jaskier asks. He supposes it doesn’t matter one way or the other now.</p><p>Geralt looks at him, brows furrowed. “How would I know that? Different names, different addresses,” he points out about the same time Jaskier realizes that his mail had been sent to his parents' address and his library card was under his regrettable legal name. </p><p>“Oh, yeah.” Jaskier scratches his chin, a little embarrassed. He missed a spot while shaving and he now looks like he purposefully grew a sad little soul patch. “We had some good conversations by mail, huh?”</p><p>“Yeah, great,” Geralt says absently. He took another sip from his coffee and makes a face, glaring down at the mug in distaste. Jaskier remembers Geralt looking down at the first meal he made for Jaskier with a similarly betrayed disappointment. He sighs down at his mug now. “Listen, Jaskier, what do you want from me?”</p><p>“You.”</p><p>Geralt gives him a genuinely puzzled look that hurts Jaskier to his very core. “Why?”</p><p>“Because I’m in love with you,” he says simply, "and I keep falling in love with you. Whether you're a grumpy librarian demanding money, a beautiful stranger on the stairs, or have morning breath and fart in your sleep--” </p><p>“I would <em>never</em>--” </p><p>“Keep telling yourself that, buddy,” Jaskier says.</p><p>Geralt's mouth twitches. “Does insulting men usually get you what you want?”</p><p>“No, that’s probably why I’m still tragically single,” Jaskier responds. Throughout all the various iterations he has known of Geralt, he has loved every last one of them. It takes a special kind of idiot to fall in love with the same person three times, but maybe it’s a gift too. “I’m kind of a mess,” Jaskier confesses like it isn’t apparent with more than a thirty-second glance to everyone in a ten-mile radius. </p><p>“I know who you are,” Geralt says quietly. </p><p>And he does. The one good thing about being terrible at life is that you know people really want you for you. No one is hooking up with him for his awful cookies or access to his frequent customer cards to sandwich shops. Geralt has seen him at his lowest, bleeding and lying on the floor where he tripped himself; being petty and shitty to a free public service and he thought, <em> Yeah, that guy. That’s the guy for me </em>. </p><p>Possibly, he’s a little damaged too.</p><p>“I should apologize,” Jaskier says.</p><p>Geralt holds up a hand, looking tired. “It’s fine. I get it.”</p><p>It would be so easy to let this go, to take Geralt’s forgiveness, and run with it. Geralt would forgive him this, Jaskier realizes. He would keep forgiving him and blame himself the whole time. He doesn't know what happened with Geralt's ex-wife, but he can make an educated guess.</p><p>“I’m no expert but I think when you don’t talk things through, they fester and ruin everything.”</p><p>Geralt stays silent, looking resigned.</p><p>“Geralt, Geralt,” Jaskier says urgently, “from the moment I saw you walking up the stairs, the second I read your shitty and weirdly specific letter to me, when I saw you eating a can of beans like an absolute animal--"</p><p>“You were<em> stalking </em>me?” </p><p>“Let’s not focus on the unimportant stuff,” Jaskier says quickly. “The past is the past. The point is that I kept falling in love with you over and over again – I just didn't realize it at the time. And you might not be afraid, but Geralt, vulnerability is scary.”</p><p>Geralt shrugs and looks away. </p><p>While Jaskier pretends to be gregarious, seems to give his heart and time away easily, he is terrified of being in love. Geralt is just the opposite – he plays his cards close to the chest because he loves easily and deeply. That also means it’s so, so terribly easy to hurt him. Yet he keeps letting Jaskier into his life.</p><p>Here it is, the missing piece of the puzzle that makes up Geralt that Jaskier was too goddamn stubborn to see. He doesn’t need to win Geralt’s affections-- he’s always had them.</p><p>“I'm sorry,” Jaskier says, stepping even closer. There’s an inch of space between them now. Geralt has set his ridiculous mug down on the window ledge. He's not backing away; it's only ever been Jaskier doing the running and he's done now. “I’ll be more careful with you,” Jaskier vows and closes that last inch of space.</p><p>He kisses his promises into Geralt’s spectacularly soft mouth, grabs his equally spectacular caboose. If love could be expressed through osmosis, then Jaskier is going to assure that Geralt knows his ass is the most beloved ass in this whole godforsaken world. Geralt reaches around and pries Jaskier's hand off his ass all without breaking the kiss.</p><p>Jaskier has to pull back and laugh quietly. His forehead rests against Geralt's.</p><p>“Let’s go home,” Jaskier suggests, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding until Geralt nods and kicks off the from the wall. He holds out his hand and wordlessly, Geralt takes it.</p><p> </p><p> ---</p><p> </p><p> When they get outside, it’s pouring down raining now.</p><p>“Did you bring an umbrella?”</p><p>“No.” Geralt looks over at him. “Did you?”</p><p>Jaskier squints at him. “Do I really seem like the type that thinks things through?” he asks frankly. He looks up at the sky where the rain is coming down even harder with no signs of letting up any time soon.</p><p>So here they are: Two men woefully unprepared for what’s to come, big fucking surprise. He glances over at Geralt, who’s looking back at him, eyes warm. Jaskier’s no expert at relationships, or anything at all really, but thinks they’re going to be okay anyway. “Make a run for it?” he suggests.</p><p>“Sure. Count of three?”</p><p>“Wait is that one-two-three-<em>go</em> or one-two-<em>go</em>?” He scratches his chin again with his free hand, gives Geralt’s hand a little squeeze. He's got to shave, this facial hair is ridiculous. His palms are really very sweaty; he doesn’t care – Geralt loves him anyway, gross sweaty palms and all. He grins dopily at Geralt and sees him glaring back and says quickly, “You’re right, doesn’t matter. One-two-three-Go.” They step into the rain at the same time, finally completely in step. </p><p>The rain is freezing cold and they're drenched in seconds. </p><p>“Jaskier,” Geralt says, voice low, husky.</p><p>“Yes, my darling?” Jaskier is all grown up now; he is unafraid of loving and being loved in return. His nipples are perky, his body is ready.</p><p>“You still owe me $269.50,” he says very seriously.</p><p>Jaskier abruptly stops, nearly pulling Geralt off his feet. He’s fallen totally and completely head over heels for someone so pedantic and bloody-minded that the only plausible way to handle him is to play along with his crazy. It’s a good thing that Geralt’s crazy perfectly compliments his own. “Do you take credit?” he asks plaintively.</p><p>“No,” Geralt says consideringly, “but I could loan you the money to pay off your bill, and then you set up a payment plan with me." He doesn't seem to care that the rain is pouring down his face, matting down his hair. Probably because it makes him look like some kind of ad for frightening beefcake porn that Jaskier does not occasionally watch. "I would have to charge you interest, of course.”</p><p>“Geralt, are you fucking with me?”</p><p>“How else will you learn responsibility? It would be a very fair rate.” His tone is completely serious, but his mouth is twitching, his eyes sparkling.</p><p>Jaskier cackles. “You’re<em> such </em>an asshole. </p><p>“But you love me anyway.” His tone is bright, wondering. Jaskier promises himself that one day he’s going to be able to say it and not sound surprised. One day they might both believe it of themselves. Today is as good of a day to start as any.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jaskier says, and it’s no hardship to admit at all. In fact, he’s never said anything truer: “I do love you. I really, really do.” </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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